Alvin and the Chipmunks: A Twist of Fate
by SpyroDragonTime
Summary: His own pride came at a cost, one that took Simon decades of bad memories before being finally able to mend his own bonds with his family. But no matter the tragic outcome of what should have been a simple experiment, he could never have predicted what far-reaching results it would have by affecting his family's fate .(Please R and R) (on hold)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 The year is 2080

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 **Author's note:**

 ** **This story has been a journey in and of itself. I have sought help in these days, my debut work on the site. In all of this, I have to give thanks to those who have assisted me:****

 **munkfeavor76**

 **MRAY 4TW**

 **Ben**

 **Their contributions are appreciated, and I express my thanks. It has been a difficult ten chapters and were it not for them, it's likely that I would not have had made it thus far. I have enlisted further help from another reader, yet another who is committing himself to Beta'ing my work, a step they're taking to ensure that all you read is a fluid work of fiction. While we are not perfect individuals, that shouldn't stop us from doing what we enjoy to the best of our ability.**

 **-SpyroDragonTime**

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The children all came rushing up to their grandfather, their youthful energy causing them to be all over the place. In their childhood exuberance, they called out eagerly to the one they sought. "Grandpa Si, Grandpa Si!"

Tim, Carla, Arthur, Selena, Anais, and Angela had effectively broken the elderly chipmunk out of his brooding, his mind losing his train of thought. He looked up to regard the children, and smiled not only with his mouth, but with his entire aged visage. With such white eyebrows and furring on his face that seemed to be accustomed to puckering, anyone would believe that he was wise beyond his years given his 'experienced' look, not even knowing that they were right in their assumptions. However, this didn't detract from his beaming smile that he radiated at them upon their arrival. "Oh, yes! What is it, little ones?"

"How come Grandpa Al and Grandpa Theo are always together?" Over the years, it had always puzzled many other people how the chipmunks sang and spoke together without prior rehearsal. While Simon had no idea at the time, it was his turn to feel the same way others may have had in the past when he heard the children speak together in perfect unison; that is, slightly unnerved.

"Ah, you mean the dynamic duo?" Simon asked back while raising his eyebrows.

"Yes." "Uh-huh!" "Yeah!" "Sure we do!" "You bet'cha!" The children exclaimed independently this time around.

Simon was still smiling somewhat, but it no longer reached his spectacled eyes as the memories of his past came flooding back to him. "Well, those two weren't always the dynamic duo that you see today."

"What?! What do you mean by that?" The children exclaimed at the same time.

"Well, when I was around your age, it was Theodore and myself at that time, not Alvin and fact, it was first Theodore and I due to the fact that our emotions and mindsets were more compatible," Simon went on to further explain, hoping that this would sate their inquisitiveness.

The grandkids all cocked their heads to the side, almost in the way curious puppies do. "Oh. What happened to the two of you, then?" One of them asked.

"We sort of… just grew apart." Simon said to the probing children.

The grandkids looked from one to another, asking the same question to themselves in their mind. 'Why would they grow apart?' Their three grandfathers seemed so close. Believing that they might have dredged up bad memories, Arthur spoke up quickly, hoping to change the subject and his grandfather's mood along with it.

"Oh. We didn't know. Anyway, we're always seeing that very old music CD that's above your bed on the shelf, standing up in a support frame as if it's on display. Who are those chipmunks on the cover picture? Are they you, Grandpa Al and Grandpa Theo? And who're the rest?"

Simon hobbled over to where the CD was located, chuckling the whole time. "One question at a time, one question at a time, Arthur!" After retrieving the CD from where it was, he presented it to the children while pointing at each of the chipmunks on it in turn.

"That's all of us; you know them as Grandma El, Grandma Brit, Grandma Jen, Grandpa Al, Grandpa Theo and I, Grandpa Si." He pointed at himself at the last with a pleased smile on his face. "Not including Grandpa Chip, Grandpa Ian, Grandma Ashley and Grandma Gadget. Our full names were Eleanor, Brittany, Jeanette, Alvin, Theodore and myself, Simon. Yes," Simon nodded to children as he allowed the names to roll off of his tongue with contented emotions, "those were our full names." He pointed at the picture of himself last, but the children easily picked him out; he was still wearing blue clothing after all these years, and the glasses were a giveaway as far as hints were concerned.

"We were called 'Alvin and the Chipmunks', along with the Chipettes. We were a famous band, and we were one of the top pop bands in the world. Alvin and Brittany sang lead as the front-singers, Theodore and Eleanor sang harmony, while Jeanette and I sang backup and melody. That was our last song that we sang as a group, on that CD." Simon laughed to himself. "This CD might be the last one of its kind, so all things considered, this is also a collector's item now; after all, it's rare enough."

The kids were shocked, but still reacted,"Wow! How come Chip, Ian, Ashley and Gadget are not on it?"

"Well, the other four chipmunks weren't with us yet and did not become a part of our family picture until several years later." Simon's reply was low, reminiscence was thick in his tone. He hoped that his drop in emotions wouldn't be noticed, however.

Then Tim, Carla, Arthur, Selena, Anais, and Angela looked at each other, before Angela put forward her question. "How come you always look very sad? I saw that you almost cried when you looked at Grandpa Al on the cover. Did Grandpa Al sing? What happened to his voice? He had to be able to sing if he was a front-man, right? But he's mute now."

Shrugging off the fact that Angel had recognized his emotional lapse, Simon answered. "It's a very painful memory of what had happened a very long time ago. Alvin was involved in an accident, along with Theodore and me. Alvin paid a significant price when he tried to save me. I… it was my fault the accident happened in the first place, and he-…"

Simon just couldn't hold back the tears after saying that. The children gave him a little time for him to collect himself before Angela continued. "He lost his voice, didn't he?"

The old chipmunk could only nod in response. To help console him, they hugged him tightly, as if they would never let go, in the way only children could. Simon felt a bit better, but not much. Just then, however, Alvin and Theodore both walked into the house. They had marvelous timing; he suspected that they had overheard what had been said in the 'privacy' of his house. Simon lived a far ways from where Alvin and Theodore lived, but they were sure to have been overhearing everything he and the grandkids have been saying. No one knew how they could do such things, but suffice to say, it was something they were able to do. It was really easy to entertain some speculation that it was from an event that had taken place during their youth.

Alvin turned to Theodore and used sign language to communicate something to him; this passed quickly and efficiently, scarcely a second before the younger of the brothers would speak in Alvin's stead. "Alvin says: 'Simon, you need to forgive yourself. After all what happened was an accident'. And I agree, Simon," Theodore mumbled the last mostly to himself, but he was sure that Simon still heard him.

The old chipmunk who was still sitting with the children shook his head, his cheeks still glistening from the tears as he focused on Alvin. His voice cracked in the sadness of the moment, "How those ten words… those ten words that I said to you sixty-three years ago still haunt me."

"I went through the same thing that you are still going through Simon. The only difference is that I forgave myself with Alvin's help, and you haven't," Theodore spoke. "I also said something to him before the experiment went wrong that I still remember to this day. What you didn't know is that Alvin had begged me to call you and to ask you to do your experiment outside. So I felt guilty for not calling you and for what I had said to him. I'm also to blame, so you're not alone in this!"

Simon wiped away the tears using his arms before looking at his brothers. "I have tried everything I can to let go and forgive myself; but the one thing that I miss the most is Alvin's voice. The other thing that bothers me, as well as Jeanette, is that we couldn't learn sign language, which is terribly ironic. We have read thousands of books on the subject and have watched countless hours of videos on the internet just to try to learn it."

Alvin scratched his chin briefly in thought before an idea came to him, which he then told Theodore via sign-language. Theodore spoke for him, " _do you still have your old guitar? And can I borrow some cotton balls, Simon?"_

Simon pointed to his bedroom closet, tears still welling up in his eyes that were beginning to smear the insides of his glasses. The little ones were still hugging their grandfather; while it helped, the progress was slow, as in the fashion of a river that was succumbing to the effects of a drought. Alvin took notice of this as he walked to Simon's bedroom; he turned around and signed something to Theodore, who nodded in return.

Theodore turned his attention to Simon. "Simon, do you trust us? I know Alvin has a plan." Simon merely nodded his head. "We want you to close your eyes, and this goes for the little ones as well. We are going to play a very old song, well… old to us, but new to all seven of you and we just want you to just to listen to the song."

Alvin returned with the guitar and some cotton balls which he then stuffed into Theodore's ears and his own. This confused Simon, but he decided not to ask about it.

When Alvin starts to play 'Walk the line' on his guitar, Simon and the others close their eyes before Theodore starts to sing… but to Simon's confusion and shock, he hears Alvin singing. Over the years, Theodore had learned how to imitate Alvin's voice by listening to songs that Alvin had sung before the accident robbed him of his voice. Theodore has so mastered singing in Alvin's voice that no one could tell the difference. It was a perfect mastery of tone and tempo.

After the song was over, Simon opened his eyes abruptly before dashing (as only an old chipmunk could) over to his older brother, and hugged him. "I-I m-m-missed y-your v-voice s-so b-bad, but how?" Simon had longed to hear Alvin's voice again. This was by far the most welcome surprise he'd had in decades.

"What you heard was me singing, not Alvin." Theodore said, "We didn't want you to be even more miserable, and we did not want to try to trick you either. We are sorry about that." Once Theo stopped talking Simon went over to his younger brother and gave him a hug.

Simon shook his head while a smile traced his lips. "If it was a trick, I appreciate the effort, Theodore." He turned to Alvin as well. "You too, Alvin. Thank you."

Alvin's hands moved rapidly to communicate. "If you don't forgive yourself, you're never going to heal on the inside. Now is the time to let go and be whole again, if I can forgive you, then you can forgive yourself."

Theodore was just about to tell Simon what he had said; that's when Simon said, "I… I think I can understand what you just said to me, Alvin. I understand the meaning behind the song." Simon spoke a light tremor in his voice as tears of happiness glistened in his eyes.

"Theodore, you gave me the best gift of all, and you gave me what I missed the most, thank you, thank you, thank you. You're right; I do need to forgive myself. Thank you; both of you for helping me to understand."

 _"_ Theodore and I have always kept an eye on both of you and helped you when you did not want us to help. Just know that we will always keep an eye on both of you no matter what." Theodore translated for Alvin.

"Alvin, Theodore, even though I have pushed both of you away, more times than I can count, I'm ashamed to admit, I'm glad that you both still tried to help me over the years and never gave up." Simon looked to both of his brothers with teary eyes as he said those words.

"Big brother Alvin told me something that I did not quite understand at that time, but I figured it out a little later that night. What he said to me was 'look, Theodore, you need to forgive yourself, it was an accident that none of us saw coming. I don't want to lose any of my only brothers who mean the world to me, the accident has made me realize just how much I could have lost and has made me so grateful to find what I never realized. I have family who I love dearly.' I took those words to heart, Simon!"

"I just wish I could have understood what you were trying to do for me all those years ago. I want to thank both of you again for helping me deal with my guilt and shame." Simon said to both of his brothers feeling better about himself now. It was a little, but it was going a long way.

"It's what brothers are for," Theodore answered with a smile.

"What brings you to my library anyways?" Simon asked. While the brothers were finally coming to terms with each, the children merely sat and watched. They didn't want to interrupt this special moment that had obviously been building for a long time; precisely why they wanted to stay and listen. They were also hoping to learn more about their somewhat secret pasts which wasn't usually something spoken of very often.

"Well, Alvin, myself and the rest of us, wanted to ask you if you are up to going to see Dave tomorrow. We know that you always go with us to visit him in the cemetery. But in the past, you weren't up to wanting to go, but went anyway. Tomorrow is his birthday after all." Theodore asked Simon.

Simon looked thoughtful for a moment. "This is the first time in my life that I want to go. And can we also see our parents, or what we think could have been our parents' grave site as well?"

Theodore then places his paw on his brother's arm. "We'd be delighted to take you there as well. Oh! Here is a very old letter from Dave that he wrote when he was very sick. Dave made us promise not to give it to you, or open it, until you finally forgave yourself for what had happened. Dave even put tinfoil on the inside of the letter, just so that no one else could look through to read it. Obviously, he didn't want to take any chances. We know that you'll want some private time with Dave when you visit him."

Simon gazed at the letter solemnly for a moment before coming to a decision. "I'll read the letter at the grave site tomorrow. Dave must have had a reason why he asked you to hold the letter. Thank you both for helping me again."

Alvin used sign-language and Theodore speaks for him. "Both of us knew that you were very close to Dave and he also knew that we don't break promises. Well… mostly." They laughed at that, before Simon resumed.

"Well, he knows how you two are; I still can hear him yelling 'Alvinnnnn! Theodooorre!' when the two of you got into trouble." Simon said with a chuckle. Alvin had a wry smile as he shrugged as if he was innocent. They all laughed at that.

"Yeah, we kind of drove him crazy at times." Theodore said to Simon as well as speaking for his brother. "Although it was mostly Alvin's fault." They all laughed again at this, save for Alvin who merely pouted in wry humor.

"Do both of you still have nightmares from what happened so long ago?" His two brothers' nodded nod their heads indicating a "yes", and remained quiet for a bit, long enough for Arthur to want to break the silence.

"For the song that Grandpa Theo just sang, is that what Grandpa Al sounded like before he lost his voice?"

All three brothers nodded their heads.

Simon scratched his head sheepishly. "Theodore, even though I can finally understand sign language, can you, well, um..." He trailed off, unsure of how to voice what he wanted without sounding too awkward.

The green-clad hooded chipmunk grinned as he realized what his brother was trying to say. "Of course I will! Besides, I have gotten so used to talking for Alvin that it would feel uncomfortable for me if I didn't talk for him. Also, yes, I can speak in Alvin's voice just around you when he uses sign language. That's what you wanted to ask me, isn't it?"

Simon replied with a nod, before Theodore went on. "So that you know, I learned how to mimic Alvin's voice decades ago. I always talk for him in his voice when he asks me a question, and I answer him back in my voice. I'm just not allowed to do it in front of our wives; it freaks them out too much." Theodore mumbled mostly to himself. "Besides, that's not the only voice I can copy."

Simon laughed in amusement at his younger brother's rambling. "Well, some things never change."

"Good to hear that you are now at peace with yourself, Simon." Theodore said to Simon.

Alvin laughed in mute before using sign-language to Theodore: " _Why don't we all go to our place for chipmunk treats, I know little sister always has some in stock in our kitchen. This applies to you too, Simon; you, big, pink, hairless rat."_

Theodore used sign language to discretely answer his brother, momentarily forgetting that Simon could now understand what he was 'saying'. "Hey, you forgot to add 'diaper boy'."

"Hey! Have both of you been calling me that for the last sixty-three years?! I resent being made fun of for something that happened over 60 years ago! How was I supposed to know that the experiment was going to remove my fur?! It grew back, didn't it?" Simon raised his voice, in complete disbelief.

Alvin nods his head as well as Theodore, but Theodore's the only one to laugh audibly after hearing Simon's outburst.

Simon slapped himself on his forehead in exasperation. _'I can't believe those two have been calling me that in sign language for the last sixty-three years and I didn't even know it._ ' "One of these days the four of you are going to have to tell me your secret of looking so good and young. The four of you even live in one household! Which I still can't believe you haven't tried to kill each other since you're mingling all the time. And don't you mean doggie treats? They're not chipmunk treats… although they are delicious. Color me hypocritical for trying them too."

"How did Grandpa Al get the three long scars across his chest? Why does Grandpa Chip, Grandpa AL, Grandpa Theo and Grandma Ash have those weird-looking silver things in their ears?" Anais asked.

Simon replied; "I will tell you about that later today and about those weird-looking silver things, those are ear tags from long ago."

"What are ear tags?" Selena asked innocently. Although her question was more-or-less ignored, it was done purposefully as Alvin realized that there was far more ignorance in the village than he could have imagined. Generations upon generations have grown, unknowing of what had transpired, leaves unaware of their roots.

Alvin quickly verbalized in sign-language, which Theodore translated. "I think it's time that we tell everyone everything that happened so long ago. Let's swing by at Talbot's House as well, just so he that he can fill in some of the parts that he knows best. He does enjoy chipmunk treats, too. Should be fun, right?"

"They're dog biscuits," Simon corrected again. "But you're right about that. It is time that we tell them everything. The entire village." Alvin and Theodore nodded their heads in response. "Let's all go to the center of the village."

Simon prepared to address everyone who had gathered in the in the center of the village, which was a surprising amount given the short period in which the six children had informed them to come. He had brilliant oratory skills, and he was about to put them to good use. "To the chipmunk clan and friends, all of you have been asking a lot of questions, and now I'm going to tell you the truth… the truth that has been long overdue. All of your questions will be answered in this story that I'll tell with the help of my brothers, friends and wives to all of you. It starts sixty-three years ago in the year 2017 when there were just the six of us. The original six chipmunks."

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 **Author's notes:**

 ***'Walk the Line' is sung and owned by Johnny Cash. Last I checked my Birth Certificate, it didn't say that my name is Johnny Cash; therefore, I don't own the song.**

 **-The (Original) chipmunks are at age 72.**

 **-The chipmunk clan and friends have over 100 members each side and now they are currently in the 4th generation along with there friends as well.**

 **-The village leaders are Alvin, Theodore, Brittany, and Eleanor.**

 **-The pairs are: Alvin & Brittany, Theodore & Eleanor, Simon & Jeanette, Ashley and Chip, Ian Hawke and Gadget. **

**Each pair of chipmunks has 4 pups (AKA kids).**

 **Each pair of chipmunk friends also have 4 Wokling each** **(AKA kids) and there are 5 pairs.**

 **-The ear tags (earlier mentioned) are in both ears.**

 **-Alvin, Theodore, Ashley and Chip are the only ones that got ear tags that can never be removed. Just like there friends ear tags.**

 **-The 10 elderly chipmunks are the last of their kind. At the risk of giving spoilers, no more shall be said about this topic at this time.**

 **-All the Chipmunks live in a village, along with friends. You will read about their friends later in the story as well as the village.**

 **-The Chipmunks and the friends are 12 inches tall**

 **-It is mandatory that everyone in the village learns sign language, due to Alvin's circumstances and a few friends.**

 **-The village is very well hidden on earth from people.**

 **-The chipmunks' village a long with friends has its own rules and laws that they live by.**

 **-Talbot is now the village guardian. He keeps the village safe from most people. He also sees the whole village as his family.**

 **Beta's Note: Hello. To the previous Beta's (and/or co-writer) before me, I thank you for helping out an aspiring writer on this site. I hope to do my best and carry on the torch in your stead. It is my sincerest wish that you will all be successful in your separate endeavors. Of this family that shares a love of fanfiction, I pray that I'll amend this story to ensure that the work is fluid, easy to follow and worthy of being added to your 'favorites' list. Even if this does not become the case, it shan't discourage SpyroDragonTime, nor shall it discourage me, as this is done mostly for our own enjoyment and our desires to share it with you.**

 **While I can not promise that my editing will be perfect, I shall try my best. That, I can promise.**

 **-Vos Mos Amplio.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:**

 **In my story, the youngest to oldest are: Eleanor, Theodore, Simon, Jeanette, Brittany, Alvin. They are in the 4th grade and are 9 years old, and the year is 2017.**

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 **Chapter 2**

The two brothers were in the front room, hiding just behind the couch to look outside through the slighted parted curtains. Caution was key; Alvin didn't want to take the chance that the two men he was spying on would spot him, although Simon was more than reluctant to follow his brother's example.

"But Si," Alvin protested in hissed whispering. "I don't trust them at all! I mean, just look at their suits! They look like they paid off a couple of hobos twenty dollars for their clothes and then doused it with black ink just to make it look like a nice suit. And look at their black van! It's old and has scratches all over it. The license plates are even missing! That's not right, Si!" Alvin thought for a bit before realizing something. "I've even heard that van all over town."

Simon frowned deeply. "How do you know that it's the same van? Besides, there's a large number of vans in our neighborhood due to the fact that most of the residents are familial oriented and family-travel inclined, such as family outings and the like. Besides, the engines in vans can sound similar to other vans!" Not wanting to even hear his brother's rebuttal, Simon folded his arms and faced away from Alvin, who needed a moment to grasp what his brother had just said.

But he was no fool. He realized that his brother was saying that he (Alvin) could have been hearing other vehicles. At this, Alvin shook his head and continued to entreat his brother. "I just do, alright? Somehow, I can remember every single sound that I have ever heard before. I just _know_ I have heard that same engine sound before; I just can't quite put my finger on it yet ok, okay? That same van has been going around our neighborhood for the last two months. It's like they've been watching us or something! I just have a bad feeling about this, Si. Maybe we should call the cops on them or something!"

"Alvin, you're just upset that they didn't give you twenty thousand dollars to experiment on new elemental chemicals, and besides, I did a background check on them. Their profile is fine and they can be trusted. They're merely fellow scientists from Arizona. They merely found out about my being a fellow aspiring scientist! This is probably their way of giving me a grant, or an easy scholarship to help me get started in the field of chemistry."

Alvin stared at the men through the curtained windows where they were parted. "Arizona, huh? Then why are they so white if they are from Arizona, without even a trace of a tan or something? It's the hottest part of the country, whether you use air-conditioning or not! And I know how people from the government are supposed to dress. They dress up in **new** expensive suits and drive **new** cars." Alvin placed a lot of emphasis on the word 'new', and his stressing of it only served to make Simon more upset.

"That's not the point Alvin! The point is I believe them, and we don't have to agree on everything." He turned around slowly and glowered at his brother, "not to mention, don't you have some stupid party that you have to go to? One that I wasn't invited to, as well?"

Alvin closed the curtains fully and then turned his head to regard his brother, taken aback that Simon was sticking by his point, and now taking the argument into social affairs. "What? But Si-"

"I don't want to hear it! You always get invited to every single party and I don't. I never get noticed. I might as well stay behind and do something constructive like conducting the experiment! Now leave me alone." Simon folded his arms and turned away to fully ignore his brother; he'd had enough.

"Oh, come on, Simon! It's not my fault if you don't get noticed! Besides, your sciency-stuff is a real buzzkill. No one wants to invite the one guy to the party who'd want to remind them about their homework and all that junk! If you just calm down, not be so uptight, take it a little easier and follow my lead, people will notice. Going to a party isn't rochet science; you treat it like it is. You are supposed have fun, not make a list of everything to do at one."

Simon sighed deeply. This was why he was so dead-set on fulfilling the chemical experiment. He was well and truly upset that he was the only one who wasn't invited; even Jeanette and Theodore had been, although the latter had declined the invitation. In addition to that, the experiment seemed like a good way to pass the time and make some money, a concurrent benefit. He could admit that it was a bit shady, but since he'd already put in applications for scholarships, he figured that these must be the people who came in response to his financial aid requests. Perhaps the experiment was merely a test to see if he was deserving of it, he'd heard of benefactors doing things like that. He shook his head to free himself from these thoughts before focusing on Alvin, pouring his heart out and his anger along with it; it had been a long time, and reckoning had arrived. "I never get noticed because of you! You and Brittany always take the spotlight from Theodore and me as well as the rest of us when we play as a group. And we almost always sing all of your songs along with Brittany's, not mine or Theodore's or Eleanor's or Jeanette's."

Alvin held up his hand in an effort to placate his brother. "Okay, that's a little bit true," he admitted quietly. "We can sing our different songs each week, yours this week, Theodore next week, then me again the week after. But could you at least do the experiment outside? If these chemicals are anything like the ones in the chem-lab at school, we wouldn't want them to stink up the house, or worse, burn the place down! I've heard of acids doing things like that!"

Although that sounded like a decent compromise, he still felt cheated. "The chemicals… they're safe." He defended in a whisper. Simon felt his blood beginning to boil in his frustration. He turned around with his voice full of anger and starts to yell at Alvin, not knowing that he may regret what he just said. "Me? We'll sing my songs this week? This week? Sing my songs **this week**? It's already **Friday**! If this was to be my week, you've already taken it from me to sing your own songs! You're always bringing me down, talking about what I can't do, telling me how to live my life! Now, you're telling me smack about whether or not I can do a simple experiment…?! **I hope I never have to hear your voice again**!"

Simon ran off into the basement, not wishing to even see Alvin's face for another second. It hurt the red-clad hooded chipmunk; no, it cut him deeply to hear Simon say those things. He hadn't realized that he had accidentally cheated Simon in the compromise, but that wasn't the main issue.

Alvin's sixth sense told him that something was going to go wrong, and it all came back to the chemicals that his brother was experimenting on. All he was asking was for Simon to do his experiment outside at least. Call him a hypocrite, seeing as he had set off stink-bombs in the house in the past, but this time, he felt like his concerns were justified. Wondering what he could do, he headed to the kitchen where Theodore was trying to snag a back of cheese-balls from a high shelf. Seeing his pathetic attempts and in a bid to help, Alvin leaped up to grab the bag and gave them to his diminutive brother. He absentmindedly watched his younger sibling begin to scarf down the cheese-balls, and thought of the number of times that Theodore got what he wanted; he was by no means charismatic, but Theodore, although unaware of it himself, was an emotional manipulator. Even now, he was supposed to be on a diet and yet seeing his brother's struggle, Alvin had felt sorry for him and without even realizing it, helped him. Besides, Theodore always seemed to get what he wanted; who could say 'no' to face like his?

That was when Alvin got an idea. Eagerly, Alvin dropped his suggestion to Theodore and begged him to talk to Simon to get him to stop his experiments, or even to convince him to do it outside.

Theodore shook his head as he munched on his snack. "You're just trying to trick me again."

"No! No, I won't this time! I promise! If you help me out, I'll-" The red-clad hooded Seville quickly thought of what he could use as a bribe. "Um… I'll buy you that 'Talking Teddy 4' that you have been asking Dave to buy for you while he's abroad. He won't do it, but I'll buy it! I promise! Just help me out and I'll get it for you!"

Theodore frowned. "Alvin, I know this is just another trick like last week when you pranked me with the dog biscuits." His tone sounded as if he was hurt, and Alvin leaped in to do damage control.

"B-b-but Theodore! I swear this isn't a trick, just call Simon and ask him to stop his experiment! If he says no, get him to do it outside!" Alvin was nearly on his knees begging; he had some sort of hard-wired instincts warning him that the experiment would turn into a tragedy on the coming horizon. Call it his usual theatrics, but this time, he was sincere. "Please!"

Theodore appeared to consider Alvin's pleas for a moment, before recalling all the times that Alvin's scams, pranks and tricks had affected him. It was enough to actually make him lose his appetite; he placed the cheese-balls aside and looked over his brother from head to toe, then back again. He seemed honest, but he had been the same exact way for all the other times that Alvin had been before.

"I don't believe you, Alvin! Every time you ask me to do something, it's because you're only trying to get something for yourself. You never look out for me at school and when I do help you… I always get into trouble. Simon always looks after me not you." Theodore turned, trying to hide a shed tear over his own choice of words. Not even seeing Alvin's shock, the green-clad hooded Chipmunk continued. "I'm not going to listen to your scams, Alvin! You're a… you're a liar!" No sooner than the word had been dropped, Theodore's covered his mouth with his own hand. A word like that wasn't even in his vocabulary, and he felt like he had said a 'bad' word. But it felt right. It felt… right! The youngest Seville uncovered his mouth turned to stare at his brother in silence, before shaking his head. "That's all you ever tell people. You're always lying… and if you don't have anything truthful to say, you shouldn't say anything at all!"

With that said, Theodore streaked out of the kitchen, seeing refuge elsewhere away from the piercing gaze of his brother, who was now all out of options, and no one on his side. All he had now was worry, and that wasn't helping him one bit.

Not one bit.

 **=l=l=**

Simon fumed as he worked in silence, trying to keep his focus on his experiment. 'Damn it, Alvin! Think's he so 'awesome', huh? And why do we have to be called 'Alvin and the Chipmunks'? That's another thing I hate! Couldn't we just be called 'The Chipmunks'? He's a glory-hog and an attention-grabber! I can't wait to finish this experiment and get to go to a school far away from here…'

And so his internal complaints continued.

Despite his inner peace being forfeited, he still had the majority of his attention on his experiment. It was a talent of his, and he continued to do his work quickly and efficiently. Bunsen burners were lit beneath boiling beakers, alkalines were prepared to neutralize acids, and tubes were stirred in the grasp of his dexterous hands. It was going well. In fact, he was already nearing the end of his experiment. All that he had to do now was to heat a chemical Base to record its reaction; simple. In fact, he could already feel the scholarship money sitting in his pocket. It would be too much for his pockets, of course, but it was the thought that counted.

He grasped the boiling tube with a pair of tongs, opened the glass jar containing the Base and poured a small amount inside. With a self-satisfied smile on his face, he set the glass jar aside and began to heat the boiling tube with the chemical inside. As he did this, he gazed at the jar once more with the original stuff and noticed that the labeling was peeling off. Not wanting it to fall off, he reached across with his right hand to smooth it back on, and nearly bumped his more volatile chemicals with his elbow.

"Oh no! No, no!" He cried. The bottles nearly spilled, but they soon came to settle properly, making him give a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness." In his respite, he realized that the labeling of the Base jar was beginning to sag again, peeling off more and more. Seeing as he nearly caused an accident by trying to fix it the first time, he left it alone.

Little by little, the sticky tag peeled off of the jar as the cheap adhesive wore off. Soon, the label was completely detached; the rustling of it falling to the table took his attention away from the boiling tube he had rested his primary focus on. "Hmm… that's not right. There's a label underneath?"

Indeed. Beneath where the cover label had previously been, there was the original and rightful tag. Besides the yellow labeling that said 'Devil's Cocktail' in a somewhat menacing lettering but what really got his attention and horrified him was the fact that he had read books on the concoction that had gone down in the annals of history as the most infamous chemical agent ever used in warfare… one that was vehement in reaction when it came into contact with heat. His eyes widened behind his spectacles as they snapped back to the literal bomb he was setting off, the chemical already starting to react and bleed off red smoke noxious smoke angrily from inside the boiling tube he was holding over the bunsen burner's flame.

Standing at ground zero, he didn't even have time to scream as the explosion went off instantly

 **=l=l=**

Alvin watched with a stink-eye as the men stood by their black van chattered quietly to themselves, ignorant of the chipmunk spying on them through the curtain to monitor their actions. He still stood by his earlier theories that the men weren't to be trusted, and he could feel a frown tug at his eyebrows when he watched one of the men knock off ashes from his big cigarette, (or cigar, most likely) onto their lawn. No matter how much class that the two men were trying to flash, they had no substance. If only Simon would consider that…

Had he really been upsetting Simon that much lately to cause him to completely brush him off? Even Theodore as well?

"I'm not a liar," Alvin grumbled to himself as he thought about what Theodore had said. "Sure, I don't tell the perfect truth all the time, but who does? Besides, I own up to it eventually… even if I don't get caught. That has to count for somethin'." He honestly belived that this was true; in his own privacy, Alvin liked to call it his 'honor'. Not to say he was honorable, but he always admitted to his own mistakes, even if he didn't get caught; his conscience didn't allow him to sleep at night easily if he knew he had done something wrong. "Geez… it's like my two brothers are teaming up against me-…"

Before he could further sully his mind with such thoughts, the two men suddenly returned to their black van, started it up and pulled out so that they could drive off in a hurry, leaving tires marks on the property. Alvin got the feeling that this was some sort of harbinger, a sign of things to come. But before he could further ruminate on the men's potential reasons for leaving, a resounding explosion shook the house like a mini-earthquake. Frightened and disheveled, Alvin muttered curses before realizing that the epicenter for all the bedlam had been the basement.

"Oh no! Simon!" Without heeding his own safety, he rushed off headlong towards the danger-zone, his only concern is that of his brother's welfare. Getting to the basement as quickly as he could, he yanked the basement door even faster, only to have strange and horrible-smelling red smoke billow out of the room, searing pain into his face and burning his insides every time he sought a breath. But he paid it no mind. "Don't worry, Simon!" He was already coughing, a heaving sound. " **I'm** … com…ing, **Si.**..mon!"

 **=l=l=**

"I can tell that something's bothering you."

"Nothing's bothering me, Mr. Talbot."

The man merely shrugged his shoulders, as if he were playing a simple game of charades and he already knew the answer. "Really? Theodore, why're you in my garden binge-eating my plums? Are you stress-eating, again? I really wish you'd at least ask first. The last time you did this, I accidentally blamed some schoolchildren. What's bothering you, Theodore? You can tell me. After all, I'm your babysitter while Dave is away on his business trips." Mr. Talbot smiled at this, a grin that radiated in tandem with his eyes. "What's more, we're _friends_!"

The chipmunk stopped eating as if he were now only self-aware of his own actions. He wanted to open up, to share what had been on his mind and bothering him. But before he could say anything, he heard a booming explosion rock the general area and reverberate around the neighborhood. The sound itself was enough to make him fall out of the plum tree he had previously been in, but fortunately, he landed on his feet, if only barely. "What was that?!" The chipmunk was shrill in his fright, but he never got his answer; Talbot was already running down the street. Being a neighbor, he could easily tell where the explosion had occurred. That and the fact that toxic smoke was pouring out of the Seville residence was an easy clue…

"Hurry, Theodore!" Talbot exclaimed as Theodore gathered his bearings and started to run after him. "It's your house! There might have been a gas explosion! We'll either salvage your furniture or put out the fire ourselves if there's actually a fire accompanying the explosion!"

"Shouldn't we call the firemen?!" Theodore cried as he struggled to keep up with his neighbor's seemingly mile-long strides. "Wait for me, Mr. Talbot!"

"Never mind that, we're already here!" The man pushed his way through the small front gate, its cheap latch giving way and falling to the ground uselessly. "If you want to help, call the fire-brigade while I find a hose!" The man's sensitive nose pricked at the familiar smell… a smell of an outlawed and long-forgotten chemical, 'Devil's Cocktail'. A frightening scent that was although familiar, was also one he wanted to forget about, for all the right reasons. It was the smell of war, wars that were fought in the passing of the mid-18th century. Water, however, was a superior way of administering first-aid to victims as well as reduce the effects of the chemical. "There's no time to waste! Hurry!"

"But I don't have a phone-" Theodore started to say, but the man had already left him, already running to the side of the house in search of a garden hose or something of the sort that he could use. Theodore's eyes began to dart around wildly in his nervousness. He didn't know what to do-

A knob turned, and the front door was opened suddenly. Theodore's eyes widened as he saw his big brother emerge out of the house in a rapture of stinking white smoke. "Alvin! Are you all right?!" Theodore yelled as soon as he saw his brother, but his joy was short-lived as soon as he saw that Alvin was tugging-…a pinkish _something_ , behind him. "What is that?"

"It's…" Alvin coughed up burning smoke from his lungs and struggled to form his words. " **S** _i…_ **m** _o…_ **n** …" He gurgled his brother's name in a horrid fashion, but he didn't care. " **H** _e…_ **l** _p_ **m** _e_ **w** i… **t** h **h** _i…._ **m**!"

Theodore hesitated for a split-second before nodding. "Okay!" He rushed forward to grab a hold of Simon and had to let go instantly, he flinched as he shook his hands as if to cool them off. " **OW!** That burns!"

" **I** _t_ … **b** _u…._ **r** _n_ **s** _m_ **e** … _t_ **o** _o_. **H** _e…_ **l** _p_ … **p** _l.._ **e** _a.._ **s** _e_!" Alvin pleas came from within his burning insides. Although he felt like his hands were still burning, Theodore made his decision; this time, he'd commit to helping without letting go. He would.

"Alright!" The youngest Seville grabbed Simon's free arm, gritting his teeth and ignoring the horrible pain that seemed to be eating his hands alive, he helped Alvin drag Simon out of the smoking house, painstakingly step by step. Throughout all this, despite the pain, he marveled at the fact that Alvin had been enduring the agony far longer than he had, and yet…

No. Alvin was crying, suffering silently in pain. " **P** _u…_ **l** _l_!" Alvin bit out through his hurt. Theodore, in a bid not to be seen as the weak link, took Alvin's cue and continued to help drag his limp brother out to the grass. He could feel the pain threatening to make him black out-

"Hey!" Mr. Talbot's yell was sudden as he re-emerged on the scene with a garden house, the water pressure coming out of it as high as it could manage. "It's ' **Devil's Cocktail'**! That stuff's toxic!"

Theodore, like Alvin, ignored the man in favor of helping to heft his brother to safety. The pain was now insurmountable, but the chipmunks bore through it. Although the man was now spraying the garden hose on all of them as they trekked, its help wasn't immediate. Finally, breaths of fresh air and water dousing finally began to dilute the horrific properties of the chemical compound, but it was only when they reached the grass did the two brothers finally let go.

It was all Theodore knew before he found himself suddenly seeing everything through dimming eyes, tunnel-vision taking over.

Then he knew no more.

 **=l=l=**

Green eyes slowly opened. Confusion. Grogginess. Pain.

The eyes blinked, trying to clear the blurry vision. Finally, the vision was totally clear, only to see a stark white ceiling, dotted by fine grains of sand in the plaster; it was unfamiliar, and it was with sudden panic that Theodore leaned up, only to flinch in agony. "Ah!" He stretched carefully, trying not to excite any aching. As he did so, he took notice for the first time that his hands were heavily bandaged, and seemed to be the cause for most of his soreness and hurting.

"Agh!" The pain smarted every time he moved.

"Hmph. You're awake."

Theodore's eyes widened in sudden apprehension at the abrupt noise; quickly looking around, he suddenly took notice of a man that sat in a chair in the far corner of the room, where the lighting of the room hadn't illuminated. "Who's there?!"

"Easy, easy." The voice was low, calming. Familiar. "It's me, Theodore." The man got up out of his seat, picked it up easily and came over closer so that the chipmunk could see him clearly. "It's me, Talbot."

"Mr. Talbot?!" Theodore gaped a bit, before finally calming down. "What happened?"

"Take it easy, son. I must say, you've had quite the experience, and by no means a good one. How're you feeling?" The man set his chair down at Theodore's bedside and sat in it, running a hand through his own reddish-brown hair as he did so. "Well?"

"Everything hurts, Mr. Talbot. But my hands are hurting me the most…" The young chipmunk's tone trailed off as he twitched one of his fingers inside the bandaging; it stung worse than the time he got a bee-sting. It was all he could do to clench his teeth to avoid bawling over it. "It was… where's Alvin and Simon?" He cried, suddenly realizing that he was in a hospital. Glancing wildly, he spied Alvin lying down in a bed next to him; his hands, though bandaged like Theodore's own, Alvin also had bandages wrapped around his arms, neck and chest and wearing breathing apparatus. "What's wrong with him?"

"You need to calm down, Theodore. He's going to be alright. He just breathed in too much of the smoke. That oxygen mask he's wearing is helping to purge his system." Mr. Talbot leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. "As for Simon, he lost all of his fur and hair; he's in intensive care, because he had a lot of flash-burns all over his body due to the chemical explosion."

"Oh no! Is he going to be alright?" Theodore asked, anxious to find out his brother's fate.

"He's…" Mr. Talbot hesitated, wondering if he should break the news that Simon and Alvin are in a coma. Furthermore, if he did, how would he tell him? It was a delicate situation, and Theodore was even more so. "He's asleep, Theodore," Lawrence said, at last, deciding to avoid telling the raw truth. "He's going to sleep, and he'll wake-up when he's ready. It's better…" That word sounded strange, even to himself. "It's better that he stays asleep for a while longer so that he doesn't have to feel his burns." He gestured to Theodore's thickly bandaged hands, under which there was dressing for the injuries. "Did you feel your burns while you were asleep?"

"N-… no." Theodore said at last, already convinced that being asleep was better when in pain. "I didn't." But what of his brothers, the one that was in a bed next to his? What kind of suffering was he in? And what of the other, who was asleep to a point that Mr. Talbot would say it was far better for him to be like this? What kind of pain awaited him when he woke…?

Mr. Talbot nodded in satisfaction, knowing that his ploy had worked. "Good." Before he could go any further, he noticed moisture forming on Theodore's bed-sheets; the chipmunk's head was bowed, shaded from the overhead fluorescent lights. "Theodore? Are you in pain? Should I call a nurse for a painkiller? Morphine shot, perhaps-"

"N-no…! It's not that!" Theodore sniffled. The pain, the pain of his arms, of his own body even, prevented him from even trying to brush them away. His sobbing was the final straw; he could barely even form his words. "It's all my f-fault, Mr. Talbot!"

The big man looked on in concern, wondering what the youngster was talking about. "What is your fault?"

"The experiment!" Theodore bawled. More tears fell, soaking his sheets. He looked over to where Alvin lay, where the eldest brother was wheezing for breath. "Alvin wanted me to tell Simon to stop his experiment, or to even do it outside!" The tears came faster, harder. Light rainfall became a thunderstorm. "T-this wouldn't have happened if I had just-"

"It's not your fault, Theodore." Lawrence rested a palm on the chipmunk's back, hoping to console him. "We still don't know what happened. Besides," he shook his head, "perhaps it's even Simon's fault for all we know. Maybe the manufacturer of the chemicals. Perhaps the chemicals were past the expiration date. We may never know whose fault it actually is. But certainly, certainly, not your fault."

'No… someone else is to blame. Who in their right minds would revive the recipe of one of the most dangerous chemical weapons ever used and use it on my friends?' His own thoughts were muddled, but the last thing he wanted was to scare Theodore that he suspected that they had been hit by some sort of assassination attempt; after all, this chemical was invented for the sole purpose of killing people. They were lucky to be alive. "It's not your fault, Theodore."

This did little to alleviate the boy's pain, his inner one. Talbot looked on worriedly; he had never been very good at empathy. While he could be friendly towards others, even considering the Miller Chipettes as friends and the Seville Chipmunks even more so, he lacked some of the basic emotive means to comfort someone. He had lost most of his empathy over the years; he'd been living for a long time, it was no surprise that he'd had none because he to become dis-attached because he lost things easily. No wonder that the chipmunk continued to weep.

"In any case, you should go back to bed. After all, it's past seven pm-" The man stopped talking abruptly as a new thought came to him; he looked to the door, before settling again. "I forgot. Eleanor is still out in the waiting room."

The green-clad hooded Seville stopped crying just long enough to look up in surprise. "Eleanor's here? Can I see her?"

The man smiled good-naturedly. Finally, a topic he could talk about to help take the chipmunk's mind off of things. "But of course. It's what she fought the nurses and orderlies to stay after visiting hours. She has moxie, that one," Talbot said with a grin. "Brittany and Jeanette are the same, although they're downstairs getting something to eat in the cafeteria." He skipped subjects nervously, hoping to take Theodore's mind further away from their dismal state of affairs. "And imagine! Brittany also said something about me 'leaving the water running at home'. Imagine, I spent the better part of a half-hour spraying down the basement to make sure that the house didn't go up in flames and prevent firefighters from turning the basement into the second community pool with their strong water-hose, and she's worried about a water bill-"

Nodding a bit in agreement as the man droned, Theodore's attention switched abruptly before he looked up and towards the door; hardly a second later, a nurse turned the doorknob and entered the room, gesturing to her clipboard.

"Um… sir?" She called out to the man seated at the bedside. "We're going to need more details about your relations to the chipmunks that came in? Also, we're going to need signatures-"

Mr. Talbot nearly jumped out of his seat in eagerness. Finally, a way out. He wasn't much good at social interaction, neither was he any good at pity parties; he seized the chance to get out of the awkward presence of the crying chipmunk. Not to say that he didn't care, but it was mainly an issue of being the right man for a job. That is to say, he wasn't, and all things considered, he might have even made the situation worse. Nevertheless, he didn't want to leave the chipmunk all alone. "That's fine. Theodore, I'll send Eleanor in. Nurse?" He raised an eyebrow as he regarded the woman. "I'll follow you." Taking the cue from the medical personnel, he tagged along with her through the door. Upon his exit, however, he heard the chipmunk raise an exclamation; something about realizing he had diapers on.

Under normal circumstances, he would have laughed, but these were anything but normal.

As he passed through the waiting room, the sole occupant called out to him softly, yet excitedly. "Mr. Talbot? Is he awake yet?" His eyes glanced around in search and spied the third of the chipettes on one of the wooden benches. "Huh? Can I go in?"

"Eleanor? Yes," the man nodded. "You can go. You know where the room is, don't you?" With barely a response, the chipette leaped off the bench and was already running back to the chipmunks' room to visit her closest friend. "Be careful with him, Eleanor! He's still a little sore!" The man called, a vestige of a smile on his lips. He couldn't help but feel like he had finally done something right. After all, who could be more empathetic towards the crying chipmunk than his significant other? There was something more than mere friendship, even if the two themselves hadn't yet realized it. He could do the nitty-gritty, however, he could sense ahead that they were going to ask him to fill out a form, and it would be a tough one.

Soon enough, the nurse arrived at the intended workstation and handed a form to him, tacked on to a clipboard to aid his penmanship, along with a pen to fill it out with. "Here you go, Mister… who, exactly?"

"Mr. Talbot. Mr. Lawrence Stuart Talbot." The man answered. To his surprise, the nurse smiled in slight amusement at his riposte.

"Lawrence Talbot, huh? Like that man in the old 1940's movie about the Wolfman? Your parents must've been fans of the movie, huh? To name you after the Wolfman?"

"No… just a coincidence," the man said the lie easily. 'I hope you never find out that the movie was based on a true story.' The thought was privy to himself, but he felt the need to make sure that the situation was played off. "I really hope it's just a coincidence because if it's not, the sons of the movie producers might get an itch to sue me because of movie rights."

The nurse chuckled at this. "Okay, fine." She settled down; her tone grew more serious. "Well, besides that, it seems that you're the Chipmunks' guardian? I know of the singers, and how their father is also their manager? Dave Seville, if I'm not mistaken? I've seen a poster-"

"No… no," Talbot assured. "You're indeed correct. He is their parent and he needs to be informed. They're in my care for the moment. If I may, I'll break the news…"

"So be it. Please inform him of the chipmunk's situation. Then I'll need to speak to him. For insurance information, factual information about their conditions, release dates… possible medical costs…"

The man got the impression that this was more serious than he expected and got the feeling that he had yet to be told the worst news about the chipmunk's conditions. "Fine." He took out his phone and started to dial, making sure to dial England's country code first, seeing that the man was away on a business trip, mainly on promotional work. Lawrence could feel his mood beginning to sour, and it was only more of the same when he heard Dave finally answer.

"Huh?" The voice was groggy, sleepy. "Who is this? It's midnight-"

"It's 'Talbot', Dave." The man sighed deeply. "I'm afraid I have some news, and none of it is good…" . **Friday Night**

* * *

 **Author's note:**

 **Alright, everyone, what do you think? Leave a review and tell me!**

 **Also if anyone would like to give tips or ideas it would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, and I hope to see you all back for the next chapter.**

 ** _-SpyroDragonTime._**

 **Beta's note: SpyroDragonTime's a fun guy. I've read his work, and it reflects that; humorous, and a good-natured blue-collar. Even more so, he's even told me a few riddles, and they stumped me.**

 **It's my turn, and I've got a bit of an enigmatic challenge of my own for him. He wants to know who/what my original profile is on the site, right here in this particular fandom. He'd appreciate any guesses you have.**

 **-I am the second of the two people; the first of us writes casually uses dialogue to develop characters. The second of us, as you can see, does the beta work, using thoughts and actions for character development. If you've been around this fandom frequently, chances are that you've read his work before. Perhaps you've even seen similarities in our writing/editing?-**

 **Yes. I'm vague; sue me. No hints.**

 **If you've noticed the similarities, PM SproDragonTime to tell him which profile you believe is the original one. Think of yourselves as 'lifelines' on a gameshow.**

 **Besides this, I hope you enjoyed our efforts on the chapter.**

 ** _-Vos Mos Amplio._**

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

The sun peeked over the edge of the firmament, almost seemingly hesitating to reveal its entirety to the landscape. But such things came to an end; the glare it cast through a hospital window was enough to nearly make an individual chipette curse under her breath as she was momentarily blinded by the radiance.

"…-The heck…? Morning already…?"

The second revelation she had that morning certainly earned the original sacrilege.

"Why the hell… a diaper? Why am I in a **diaper**?"

Indeed. Upon feeling the extra bulk under her clothing and peeking under her elastic-waist skirt to check to see why, she couldn't help but wonder how and why she happened to wear one in the first place. Easing herself over the side of the bed to avoid waking a still-sleeping Theodore, she made a bee-line to the bathroom to relieve herself the 'original way'.

If one thing was certain, she was, under no circumstances, about to do her thing in a diaper.

She didn't need the mental trauma, and it was still far too early in the morning for crap like this. As far as she was concerned, the darned thing got what it deserved. That is, good riddance into the trash bin.

Soon returning, Eleanor got back onto the bed to lie beside Theodore. As she was lying there, she thought to herself and wondered about the embarrassing implications, particularly if Theodore had seen her wearing one. Of course, she knew that **he** was wearing one, and she believed that she had reacted well to when he'd told her. That is to say, she didn't laugh at him, but rather consoled him. She wasn't entirely sure if he would have reacted in the same fashion had he discovered that she had shared his outcome. She was sure that she might have even _cried_ ; she had Theodore in high esteem and it wouldn't do to be in a fix like _that._

'How did the diaper even get on me in the first place? I know Alvin would never do this to me at all… right? Besides, I know that he hates seeing me cry, just as much as he does for Theodore. Well… I have to be realistic. Alvin… H-he's a prankster! Everyone knows that! But he would've had them wrapped up in a package and tell me to unwrap it when I'm by myself… yeah… that's far as he would've gone with it. Yeah…'

She felt, no, she _knew_ that she was right. But that just left a bigger question.

Since it wasn't Alvin, especially since he was without the use of his hands (and in a **coma** , now that she thought about it), who did? She glanced across to Alvin's bed. Sure enough, Brittany was lying beside her crush. 'Did Brittany do it? That's not like her to do something like that, is it? No… wait a minute. I know that she didn't sleep here at the hospital last night. Brittany must've come in very early this morning and took a nap. Well, she does like to take her morning jog at 5:30 AM on the weekends."

So was Brittany the suspect? Or wasn't she?

 **=l=l=**

 _… Clack… Clack… Clack…_

The heels of his polished well-to-do dress shoes clacked against the hard tile of the hospital corridor as he walked. The owner's ears hurt a bit at the sound; his ears were still quite sharp and the sound reverberated in the hallway, nearly making him want to remove his shoes and go barefooted. But that simply wouldn't do; he kept his focus up by thinking of other things.

'Simon…'

Mr. Talbot soon came upon the door he had been searching for and opened it, interrupting the out-loud reading of a chipette by the unconscious Seville's bedside. "Good morning, Jeanette. You must have gotten here early! How are we this morning?"

Jeanette shook her head sadly. "Well, I got here at 6 am and Brittany must have gotten here a little earlier before me. I'm okay, I guess, but I can't say the same about Simon. He hasn't woken up yet."

Mr. Talbot's eyes briefly took in the sight of the still-comatose chipmunk. "… I noticed. Perhaps the accident was worse than I first thought. He'll still pull through. The Sevilles are all strong, and Simon is no different."

"…" At hearing this, Jeanette allowed a smile to grace her face. Nearly as smart as Simon (if not smarter), she knew the nature of comas. It was, in fact, a grim situation, and they should never be taken lightly. In fact, chances of waking reduced as more time passed. Essentially, the longer he stayed in the coma, the less of a likelihood that he'd ever wake. Furthermore, there were also the prospects of incurred brain defects, such as memory loss and deadened motor control. Simon was probably the worst off if Alvin wasn't in a coma as well.

All in all, it'd been a crappy day as far yesterday was concerned.

…And… there was also the fact that Simon looked like a pink hairless rat.

Mr. Talbot seemed to read her mind as he caught her staring at her significant other. "I'm sure he'll wake up soon, Jeanette. And without any doubt, his fur will grow back as well." Jeanette blushed a bit, a bit crestfallen that she'd been seen through so easily. "Everything will be all right. In any case, I'll have to pay a visit to the others. Give Simon my regards if he comes to when I'm not around?"

"Sure?" Jeanette was confused but realized that it was the man's way of offering her some encouragement, something she was grateful for. "Sure!" She said again eagerly. She returned to her reading; they were books that Simon predominantly enjoyed reading, and she was grateful for any effort she could expend to help. "I'll tell him when he wakes up."

"That's all. I have to go check up on the others."

He was already gone through the door, making his way to his next destination on his mental checklist.

 _… Clack… Clack… Clack…_

Mr. Talbot went down the hall and turned into a room three doors down on the same side, The first he saw was Alvin, (still afflicted by his coma), but upon a second glance, noticed that Eleanor was awake, and Theodore as well. The female of the two appeared to be deep in thought; although she was polite, her answers were short. Mr. Talbot quietly told her that Dave wanted to make sure that they didn't miss any school; she merely answered with a nod. The man realized that she didn't even need any telling that she'd be allowed to visit him after school in the afternoons. Understanding that he'd said all that needed to be said and wishing to give the two singers some space to themselves, he retreated back outside to give an update of the situation to Dave on his mobile phone.

But during the process of this, somehow, he knew that he should have taken better care to be discrete as he noticed Brittany close by, getting a snack from the vending machine. If he moved away from her to talk to Dave privately, she would know that he was hiding info, and would follow him. He dawdled, hoping that she'd soon leave him so he'd have some seclusion, but she took her time, languidly pushing buttons.

She obviously intended to eavesdrop. What worried him was how she'd react when she found out the truth.

 **=l=l=**

"I forgot all about school."

"You don't have to go, Theodore. I do. That's one good thing you have going for you right now. I have a project due this week."

"But I'm your partner. Sorry I can't help out with it." He wagged his hands at her a bit to gesture them. "My hands are messed up."

"Tell me about it." Eleanor rolled her eyes before she brightened up somewhat. "Hey! Maybe they'll excuse me from doing it since you're in the hospital."

Theodore frowned. "It's not like you to want to avoid school work, unlike my older brother, Alvin."

"No." She shook her head. "But I'd rather spend time with you."

"What about school?"

Eleanor raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying that you want to be alone?"

"No, no!" Theodore exclaimed. "I didn't mean it like that!" Eleanor smiled; it was somewhat smug-looking, but her intentions were good.

"Don't worry, I know what you meant. Besides, I'm going to have to go so I can come back and teach you all the stuff they teach me! I do know you do have some difficulty with school, just like Alvin. The last thing I want is for you to fall behind."

"I know. Between you and Simon, well mostly from Simon, I get lots of help like extra tutoring. As for Alvin, Simon gets very frustrated with him. Simon says Alvin just isn't trying hard enough at school." Theodore frowned, before he brightened up somewhat. "But I know that you'll do your best and when you come back, you'll be like a teacher, right?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Okay!" Although sad to know that she'd soon leave, Theodore was glad to know that she'd back as soon as she could. His gaze soon turned to the tray of food that a nurse had left on the table for him to eat, something that Eleanor had taken notice of. "By the way, could you-"

"There's a reason I told her that she could leave the food, Theodore." She eyed his hands before getting up off of the bed to go over to the table one which the food rested. "I know that she's probably busy taking care of everyone on her schedule or whatever, and besides, I'm glad to help out any way I can." She beamed as she picked up the tray of food and rested it on the bed beside him. "And since you're not lifting a fork anytime soon…" She cut out a wedge of the stack of pancakes with a small knife before sticking a fork into it, "say 'ah'!"

 **…**

He was alone now, save for an unconscious Alvin in the bed next to his. Green eyes stared up at the plaster ceiling, absently counting the fine grains embedded in each of the sectioned tiles. "Hmm… I wonder how many dots there are on the ceiling." He didn't even realize that he was counting them methodically; it was one of those few times when his brain went on autopilot.

The chemical accident and its fallout were weighing heavily on his mind, both the implications and how it affected him and his brothers.

But what really hurt him was seeing that it was hurting other people as well.

Theodore knew that he was known as the quiet chipmunk. The 'big-boned' one. People didn't call him fat; rather, they called it 'personality', seeing that it was less offensive. But he was also called naïve and ignorant. But only one person knew that he could also be selfish and that was Theodore himself. It wasn't often but from time to time, he had deliberately incited sympathy, as well as led others to believe that the world was out to target him. Although somewhat beneficial sometimes, in this case, he felt utterly ashamed of himself.

He looked down at his hands. Heavily bandaged. Acidic burns, they said. Badly injured, they said. The doctors knew what they were talking about. The pain was killing him, even now.

Now looking back, he realized that he had gotten off easy.

All he had lost was temporary use of his hands. Simon was in a deep coma and his whole body practically bathed in the chemical that Theodore himself only came into contact with via a mere touch.

He could heal. Simon too, would heal from this.

Alvin was nearly as bad as Simon. He had rushed off into the stew to save his brother and had gotten himself nearly burnt as badly. But the chemicals had released a noxious fume, one that was corrosive in its own right. Slightly, but it was enough.

The fume was like smoke, and as such, rose in the air in the fashion of a hot gas. Simon had been dragged from the basement, but he had always been where the fresher air was, that is, closest to the ground. Alvin was always dragging his brother whilst standing _upright._

With both hands clutching his brother, he couldn't spare himself from breathing the ghastly red smoke by covering his mouth, no matter what little good it would have done.

Theodore felt a small tear well up, a spring running forth from where it was born. It soon became a river, a waterfall that spilled over to flow freely down his cheeks. His arms, on hard-wire instinct, wrapped around his chest in an effort to hug and console himself, despite the pain it incited in his offended hands. But the pain never went away… it grew… it _grew_.

 **=l=l=**

The god-awful **look** on her _face_ …

She had overheard what Mr. Talbot had told Dave on the phone. No, eavesdropped. Mr. Talbot could be discrete. The problem was that she found out. The bigger problem was Alvin's affliction and misfortune.

When Brittany entered the room, she had this particular look on her face. It reminded Theodore, strangely, of dead flowers. A flower that had bloomed but soon wilted and fell off of its stalk. Brittany had the same exact look when she found out.

It'd been a strange on-and-off relationship between the eldest of the chipettes and the eldest of the chipmunks. Sometimes, Theodore thought they liked each other. The next day, he'd be convinced that they despised each other.

All doubts he had concerning them had fled as he silently watched Brittany sit by Alvin's bedside… cup his bandage hand in hers…

 _…And cried._

Their conversation was short, and utterly bitter.

 _"What's wrong, Brittany?"_

 _The tears that brimmed in her eyes continued their runoff as she continued to cry inconsolably. "He's… He's… He's…_ _never going to talk or sing **again!** ". _Her crying affected her speech, and her quivering, shaking voice could tell anyone a ballad that her heart was close to breaking.

Alvin had always been the face of the band. He was loud, mischievous, 'cracking jokes and pranking folks', Mr. Talbot once claimed. He livened up anywhere simply by _being_ there. He spoke. He laughed. He sang. He cried. He whispered. He yelled. Loud and obnoxious. You always knew when he was around. He couldn't keep quiet to save his life.

No one would ever hear him sing, let alone speak, ever again. A golden voice had been shushed; whether or not there was an **eternity** , his silence would _outlast_ it.

And Theodore knew that if he had only heeded his brother's last audible request, the crisis could have been averted, or at least softened. But he had not; others were suffering and paying the price. Actions always carried consequences, but a lack of it often carried far more tragic ones.

Hours after, long after his tears had dried up, Theodore sought for an answer, still trying to make sense of all the chaos of the accident and trying to rear up a meager faith that it could be reverted.

But there was no changing fate.

 **=l=l=**

It was a quarter-moon.

A tall figure emerged from his home, waving goodbye to the three chipettes who were staying with him at his house, seeing that the Seville residence was in disrepair and undergoing chemical cleansing. The sisters made no objection; it was his habit and hobby to go for leisure walks at night, so they let him go.

Alone now, he strode silently in the darkness, his path barely illuminated by the few streetlights and the dim moon. It was when he was by his lonesome that his higher thought processes really took off. Sometimes detrimental but mostly beneficial, he contemplated his current life, as well as everything leading up to the present.

Deadpan expression. Just under six and a half feet tall with a great deal of lean muscle to match. Marching gait. His copper hair looked like it was dusted lightly with salt; he looked like a man just entering his forties.

He was, by all means, a simple man, yet complicated. Simply complicated, perhaps?

The chemical from the accident had yielded memories from his past. Some of those that he wished to have left buried.

 _Devil's Cocktail_ …

The stuff was invented for use in the mid-eighteenth century for small scale and private civil wars. The recipe for it had died with the conflicts it was made for, but Lawrence was sure that he had smelt the gist of the fumes from the accident. Someone had reawakened the formula to use it on the hapless chipmunks, no doubt a person with a grudge and far-reaching influence.

"I've seen first-hand the damage that the chemical is capable. It has no place in war, due to its atrocious effects, much less here and now to be used on my friends! Who… _who_ would do something like **this**?! It's… _inhumane_!" Mr. Talbot growled to himself.

 _Inhumane_ …

That was a funny word. _Inhumane_.

The chipmunks and chipettes. Humane. They had _humane_ intelligence.

Mr. Talbot himself. He was an inhuman human.

He was a wayfarer and barely touched by the ravages of time. Methuselah was titled as the longest living man in the Bible, but Talbot himself knew that he had exceeded the man's age of nine-hundred and sixty-nine by far, and then some. He himself had nearly thirteen-hundred winters behind him; one thousand, two hundred and seventy-three to be precise although his specific birthday had been forgotten long ago.

Perhaps this had to do with his curse…

He looked up at the moon. It was a traditional habit of his.

He was in Europe, where Paris was now located. He had been bitten by a _Loup Garou_ , now commonly called 'werewolves' due to misinformed entertainment. He had been endowed with the curse that accompanied the full moon, along with the horrible blight of immortality. He had watched all of his loved ones pass away before him, unable to find love because of his knowledge that he would outlast them. He had never remarried and chose to see the world as a means to aid in putting the memories behind him. In all of his travels, he tried to avoid bonding, tried to learn all he could about the planet he was doomed to walk for eternity, tried to find a way to cure himself. He had finally been alleviated the more prominent and dreadful aspects of becoming a 'werewolf' during the full moon, but his immortality remained intact. It might have left him, but who could say for certain? The time since he had belayed turning into a _Loup Garou_ was yet still young.

The cure? Being bitten by a chipmunk that Talbot himself had bitten.

Mr. Talbot laughed grimly to himself as he thought of the incident exactly two years prior. 'Imagine… I cured myself of inhumanity by infecting a chipmunk with humane intelligence with the curse. I bit Theodore, and when he turned into a beast in my own fashion, he bit me back to defend Alvin when I attacked him. They stopped, _and_ restored me! I've never changed since! Who… no… _who_ are the chipmunks? The chipettes? Like **none** other of their kind I have ever seen! They're _extraordinary_!' He looked up at the moon again as he walked; it was still only a quarter. 'They're capable of speech, to _sing_ , to learn and better themselves. They have consciences and higher level thought processes! Their intelligence is on par with a human's… no… perhaps even greater! In all my years of living, I've never came across one. I have heard rumors, of course, pertaining to talking chipmunks, but I thought they were merely myths and household folklore. Kind of like me, perhaps? A myth, a werewolf. I've never met another of my cursed species since being bitten over a millennium ago. To me, perchance, it would make sense to target me because of what I used to be! But the chipmunks…! Who would want to do this wicked act against **them**?!'

Mr. Talbot glanced up at the moon again. Tradition had turned his habit into a nervous routine. But it was no longer necessary, was it?

It was a quarter-moon, dark on the right and light on the left. It would be somewhere between two to three weeks before it was full.

He had no means of knowing if there was something as fate or anything like it. Maybe even coincidences were a far-stretch. But somehow, he got the feeling that everything was tied together. Could 'Fate' actually be real? And if it were, fate and destiny, perhaps… Was this **their** fate? Or was this a catalyst for a change? Whether it was for the better or for worse, he had no way of telling. As he walked onward into the reaches of the night, he realized that it was the only way to go. Forward.

 **Saturday Night**

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **What do you all think? Leave a review and tell us! Also, if you have any ideas and tips, feel free to give us! PMs are cool too, so if you're a guest and want to speak privately, you're going to have to create your profile.**

 ** _-SpyroDragonTime._**

 **Beta's Note:**

 **I feel a disturbance in the force. Someone will Google 'Werewolf vs Loup Garou'. Don't. You can never really trust mythology. Superstition too, for that matter. But if you're a werewolf and would like to tell me how it works, feel free.**

 **Anyway...**

 **What say you? Let us know what you think.**

 ** _-Vos Mos Amplio._**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 4**

* * *

Eleanor wiped at her eyes in an effort to rouse herself properly, before squinting at the clock on the wall. '6:22 am, huh?' Recalling her misfortune in the hospital, the chipette patted her waist before thumbing back the elastic, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight, or lack thereof, pertaining to the bane of her recent life. 'Best of all, everything seems normal. I don't have another diaper on me. God, that was embarrassing!' Gathering her bearings as she gazed about the room, she noticed that her eldest sister was still sleeping. 'Huh? Is Brittany still sleeping? That's not like her. She's always up before me, even!' Frowning at the seemingly petty case of abnormal behavior, she realized that there was more to the issue, particularly that of the reason. 'Then again… We all heard about how Alvin's never going to talk or sing again. I know this is really hard on her; I just wish she would talk to me or someone about it.' She felt somewhat ashamed, knowing that she had begun her day worrying about her own trifling issue, rather than considering her own sister's wellbeing.

"…Maybe there's something I can do…"

Sliding out of bed, she hurriedly got herself dressed before leaving the room to head downstairs. As she was in the act of doing so, she thought of the stairs that creaked with each step, wondering if she should have taken the dumbwaiter. At first glance, it looked like the perfect elevator for someone of her size, but she had hesitated, believing that it wasn't in her nature.

'Feh. It's not for me.' Her own conviction made her feel flustered, but she soon tried to cheer herself up, despite knowing that she was sorely tempted to return back upstairs just to try the pulley system even though she was already halfway down the stairs. 'I bet Alvin would love it though. I bet it'd be the first thing he'd try as soon as he got out of the hospital!' She smiled at this, before pondering the age of the house as the steps began to creak even more loudly. 'Dang, this must be a really old house. It's like some of those big old houses I used to see in those cheesy black and white monster movies. I think there are five bedrooms, not to mention the fact I and my sisters' bedroom comes with our own bathroom. Mr. Talbot even has his own little library in his den, and his sitting room's different from his living room. Heck, even his kitchen is different from the dining room, not to mention he has a super big attic and a basement. I wonder if Mr. Talbot's rich to afford to have a house like this, or even to keep it?' She thought of the wraparound porch that accompanied the house, believing that the house basically belonged in another century. Sure, Mr. Talbot appeared to be old-fashioned, but why go to such lengths to own a house like this? Did he have a large family, maybe? Thinking back on the number of rooms and the house's features, she could well imagine the sight of children running amok playing hide-and-seek and she could see herself among their happy number.

Happy, huh? These, currently, felt like tough times. Yet still, she couldn't wait for a season of good happenings. It already felt like a long time since they last played; had they been growing apart? She? Her sisters? Theodore and his brothers? Had they been growing apart? Stuck in her own head, she hadn't even realized that had she entered the kitchen until she heard Mr. Talbot's greeting.

"Good morning Eleanor. You're up early this morning." He took a deep swallow of his piping hot coffee before continuing, evidently unaffected by the temperature of the brew. "Did you sleep well?"

Her train of thought derailed, she favored the man with a large smile, although the man could see cracks therein. "Good morning Mr. Talbot, I slept okay, I guess." True to his suspicions, he saw the girl's flash-in-the-pan smile die down as her brows puckered, indicating passionate internal thought. "Although a few things have been bothering me. Well, some aren't all that important," she admitted carelessly as her mind skimmed the matter of the house, "but I'm worried about Brittany and Alvin. Brittany's been really out of it ever since she found out about Alvin's condition. Is it true that Alvin will never sing, or even talk again?" Eleanor instantly regretted saying the matter out loud; vocalizing issues sometimes gave it power, and the look that Talbot gave her made her realize that he knew that she believed in this fallacy. She didn't want to talk about it, else the matter became more and more realized.

While Talbot thought of this, he grasped that he'd need Eleanor to open up on the topic; she was more affected by the incident than she realized, refusing to see her own afflictions by instead looking to those of the others. This was a matter he'd want to save for Dave, but the last thing he wanted was for the last and cheeriest chipettes to become darkened like her sisters. He closed the large hardcover book he was reading and pushed it across the table to the opposite side before he directed her attention to it with a pointing gesture. "'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy. That book's thick enough to be an improvised seat for even someone like me. Why don't you take a seat? It's been a while since we had a heart-to-heart chat."

 **=l=l=**

"That was fantastic!" Brittany exclaimed as she patted her belly. "Swedish pancakes are my favorite!"

"Uh huh!" Eleanor affirmed. "I realized that ever since the day I first made them and you went back for seconds, then thirds. I couldn't believe it! Heck, I was even lucky to get more than two this time!"

Brittany rolled her eyes in playful contempt before smirking. "It was just that good,'kay? Thanks! They were really good! Say, could you make them again for dinner-"

"Nope!" Eleanor responded a mite too cheerfully. "Pancakes are breakfast! But they're not that great for dinner."

"Aww! For me? Please?"

Feeling the need to say something lest she appeared ungrateful, Jeanette spoke up. "These are good Eleanor, thank you for making us breakfast." At this, Mr. Talbot actually lifted his coffee cup as if she had made a toast, showing that he fully agreed. However, as he did so, he took note of all their demeanors. Brittany's own had markedly improved, thanks to Eleanor's attempt at making her sister's favorite breakfast. Eleanor's own had improved as well, but he could tell that she was still thinking back on their talk from a bare hour ago, judging from how her eyes kept glancing in a particular angle, indicating that she was ruminating on her recent memories. Jeanette, on the other hand…

Frankly put, he could see right through her. But Talbot had long since stopped judging people by mannerisms. He judged by their speech and their actions. Something was off about her, but he couldn't quite reckon why. He mentally shook his head and ignored it.

"Yes, indeed, these were delicious. Eleanor, might I request of you to make something for Alvin so he could start to communicate with others when he wakes up? Like a word-board, perhaps?"

"A 'word-board'?" She echoed in confusion. "But I don't know anything about wood-cutting or sign-making. How am I gonna make something like that?"

Talbot stroked his chin. "You seemed like a 'craft' person to me. My apologies for the presumption. But you can sew, yes? How about a patchwork quilt? With alphabetical letters and numbers in each square? That should be…. Twenty-six letters, plus ten numbers, ranging from zero to nine. That's thirty-six, no? For a proper quilt size, be it a neat rectangle or square, it should be a nine-by-four or a six-by-six for the patchwork. I'd ask Brittany to do this, but I have the belief that her talents lie elsewhere."

It sounded like a reasonable idea, and Eleanor could well envision it in her head. "Hmm… that's a good idea, Mr. Talbot! Sounds easy enough. I can do that later this evening."

Despite feeling faintly miffed that she'd been passed over for such a task, Brittany felt a few tears prick at her eyes but made no effort to hide them. "You'd d-do that for Alvin?"

"Of course, I'd-"

"Why's Alvin getting special treatment?" Jeanette's sudden complaint came as sudden as it was surprising as she had interrupted her younger sister mid-speech. "Why can't Simon get a quilt as well? I'm sure he'd need one too, since his fur is…" She trailed off unexpectedly, hesitating to further this line. "I bet this incident is most likely Alvin's fault! Simon is never careless around chemicals! Why, I'm even willing to wager all of my belongings in a bet that Alvin's going to wake up being able to talk, but he's going to falsify being mute just because he loves being the center of attention-"

Her one-sided argument fell apart as soon as Mr. Talbot shot her a warning in the form of a glare, but the damage had already been done; the emotive state of the air had done a complete one-eighty, now becoming entirely depressing. All eyes immediately averted to Brittany, who'd already left her seat and was already on her way out the door. Just before anyone could call out to her, the pink chipette had stopped on her own accord, but she declined to turn to face them, despite the fact that it was obvious that she was crying.

"…It'd be really great, Jeanette." Her voice was low, almost as if it were drowning in its own tears. "It'd be really, really great if Alvin did wake up, only to pretend that he couldn't talk." A sob escaped, punctuating her gloomy admission, and it was visibly sapping her usual emotional fortitude. "We were going to sing together when we grew up…! But now… now… I'll never hear his voice **again** … and I'll only be singing by **myself** …"

Then she was gone.

Mr. Talbot's gaze promptly snapped to Jeanette, leveling the chipette a frosty stare. "Jeanette." In concurrence, tension rose as his own voice fell in volume, admonishing the chipette. "That was uncalled for. You'll need to apologize."

"You can't-"

"You're right. I **can't**. I'm only your babysitter; I cannot coerce you into doing something you're unwilling to do. It's a recommendation. In difficult times such as this, it's important that we heed what we say and consider what we do beforehand. If necessary, go elsewhere to cool your temper, read a book maybe. But you ought to apologize. Hardly anything else matters at this point."

If Jeanette could somehow force her mouth to form words, she'd probably go off about how the man seemed like he belonged in another time, especially his Victorian-era speech, **and** his counsel. But before she could defend herself, he pressed on in his passive-aggression.

"And must you know, this entire accident could've been avoided, or at the very least mitigated, if Simon had heeded Alvin's advice. You can either stake up your pride or you can humble yourself to apologize. I hope we never have to speak of this again."

"…Yes, Mr. Talbot."

With that said, the man got up from his seat and as if he hadn't just belted out a tongue-lashing, began to clear the table before proceeding to wash the dishes.

 **=l=l=**

"You know, I didn't suppose that you'd come along."

"Of course I would've."

The big man simply nodded in response, realizing that she was right. She seemed to be someone who was more like Alvin than even more than she knew. 'She's too earnest for her own good, sometimes.' "I knew that Eleanor wanted to come, but her reasons are justified, as Theodore needed the company, seeing as he's the only one who's awake. You accompanying us, while unexpected, is still appreciated." He pointed at the room in which the two hospitalized 'munks were staying, visitor included. "It's okay that I sent her inside first. I'm not yet sure that you're ready to see Alvin quite so soon after your disclosure this morning. Nonetheless, you and I still have a few things to talk about. Privately."

"Huh?" Brittany was confused. "About what?"

"This morning, your younger sister Eleanor, confided in me that she felt distant from you. I've been babysitting all of you on-and-off for the past two tears, so I can tell that it might not be simply from the accident. Rather, it could've been going on for a long time and the recent misfortune only worsened the circumstances. When was the last time the both of you did something together?" At her sputtering response, Mr. Talbot sighed deeply. "I see. You hardly have a life together outside of singing, and it's nearly segregating you apart, making you that much closer to the boys. This is the reason why everyone's pairing up and nearly fencing themselves from their own siblings. Hence why the Sevilles have a hard time listening to each other, and you three girls hardly correlate. Although to be fair, you and Eleanor are still just a smidgen closer to each other, simply because of character compatibility."

Brittany could somewhat understand the point that the man was trying to get across. "So that's why Jeanette thinks that Simon is being left out?"

"There's that," Mr. Talbot agreed, "but in her case, she has few more issues to deal with, not just with socialism issues with her own sisters. In fact, she might need a professional to see about getting 'upstair-help'. She had problems with jealousy, accepting and adapting to change, being extremely narrow-minded-"

"I get it. She's got problems." Brittany mumbled, slightly irritated. She felt a bit offended, almost as if Talbot had been insulting Jeanette, although what he said made a lot of sense. "But what about me? What can I do?"

Lawrence shrugged his shoulders as he began to dig into his pocket to fish out his wallet. "In these two years, I've never seen Eleanor paint her nails, although you have, even if it's mostly pink. Perhaps… a little girl-time…?"

Mr. Talbot sounded unsure of himself as he said this, and the look on his face made Brittany laugh.

"That's not what we call it!"

"I wouldn't know." He took out a neatly folded twenty-dollar bill and gave it to the chipette, returning his wallet to his pocket. "But I'm sure you realize-" Talbot began to drone after this, not even grasping that Brittany was already thinking of the types of nail-polish she could or should purchase. He only fathomed this as he saw that Brittany was fidgeting, hinting that she was losing interest. He conferred her a small grin, knowing that his old-fashioned ways of lecturing were falling behind the times. "Alright then. I won't keep you. But Brittany… in the future..." His tone became more serious. "You should break the habit of eavesdropping." He noticed her face darken at this, recognizing that she was thinking about what she had found out the last time her curiosity had caused her to learn of things that would have been better off unlearnt. "Understand?"

"Yeah, Mr. Talbot. I'll never eavesdrop again. I swear." For good measure, she even crossed her heart. Conversely, Mr. Talbot only had disapproval.

"A promise would've been enough." He then waved her off as she walked away, knowing that she'd probably help herself by taking her mind off things, most likely by purchasing the nail-polish, or even window-shopping, as was her habit. "Take care."

"Take care, Mr. Talbot! And thanks for the talk!"

"You're welcome." Mr. Talbot watched her form gradually get smaller and smaller with distance and smiled. 'Hmm… I guess even someone like me can help fix things.' Hardly was this thought made when he heard a small commotion start inside the hospital room where Alvin and Theodore were in, along with the visiting Eleanor. Quickly stepping inside, he was dumbfounded only to find the youngest of the singers nearly to the point of arguing over the chipmunk's lack of independence. "What-?"

"I'm doing ok, Ellie! It's just that I **hate** how the doctors are treating me like I'm a baby! I'm not a baby and I don't want to be hand-fed like a baby or wear diapers again! I hate this. I also hate the fact that I can't even change the TV channel, let alone turn it on." Far be it from Theodore to even have such a word in his vocabulary, but in all honesty, Talbot found his rant to be amusing.

"Look, Theodore, we went over this already but I will go over it one more time. Until you can hold a spoon in your hands, you have to let them feed you, or you'll starve, 'kay? I can't be here twenty-four hours a day as much as you would like me to be. As for the remote, you need to leave it on the station with the best programs."

"But what about the diapers-"

Eleanor shook her head vigorously. "Nuh uh. I'm not touching that subject, Theo."

"Whhhy!" Ironically, his cries of frustration sounded exactly like a toddler's wailing, so much so that even he realized it himself. He calmed himself down, although retaining his sad expression. "Okay. It's still embarrassing, but I guess I'll live," he mumbled.

"Yup." Eleanor gave a long exhale. "Just keep breathing. You'll be fine."

"Are the both of you all right?" Talbot asked as he took a seat next to the pair. Seeing Theodore glance at the comatose Alvin next to him, he was about to apologize but Theodore spoke first.

"Yeah. We are. But Alvin's still out of it." The dismal mood was so thick yet still Mr. Talbot found it in him to actually chuckle.

"Sorry. You have to understand. He's usually always up and about and getting himself into trouble. In fact, he even has his own reserved desk in detention, and even then, he's still so talkative and still making a nuisance of himself. While mostly unintentional, I finally realized that he was just being Alvin."

Eleanor raised an eyebrow at this. "What do you mean?"

"Who is Alvin? He's a chipmunk, a singer, a braggart, a fanciful taleteller, a Seville, a troublemaker… but what landed him in detention the most was the fact that he was a bully deterrent."

"A… wha…?" Theodore would have scratched his head were it not for his bandages. "Bully deterrent?" In his riposte, Mr. Talbot merely clicked his tongue as he wagged a finger.

"Think about it. When was the last time that any of you had gotten bullied? Alvin's been fighting all of your bullies, and pertaining to the ones who were too large for him for him to fight head-on…" Mr. Talbot crossed his arms, but still retained a proud look on his face. "Let's just imagine a prankster Alvin with a mean streak. 'Little strokes fell great oaks, after all'." With a shake of the head, Talbot groaned. "I hadn't yet come to terms with it, myself. Alvin and I used to converse a lot in detention. I suppose I'll miss that too… funny, I haven't even considered the fact that I looked forward to seeing Alvin in detention nearly every evening. While a bad thing, in retrospect, he was the only good face in the room when there were other ill-to-do students there. He… somewhat reminds me of… me, back when I was a lad growing up in London."

Eleanor looked down, her thoughts already running away with her in tow. "Is Alvin your favorite or something?" To her own surprise, Eleanor felt a tinge of jealousy.

"Yes. He's my favorite," Mr. Talbot replied with a small smirk. "You're also my favorites too, just like Brittany, Jeanette, and Simon. You're all my favorites. I'm the last surviving member of my family, unfortunately. It's one of the main reasons why I don't mind looking after the six of you when Dave is gone on his business trips. You six chipmunks have given me something that I almost forgot what it is like to have. In a way, I consider the six of you chipmunk's to be part of my family now, as much as I hope you consider me to be a part of yours."

Theodore nodded. "Of course! You're like… like an uncle!" Eleanor was in full agreement.

Mr. Talbot smiled in appreciation. "Thanks. You six have taught me more than you realize. In any case, I have to call Dave and let him know what's going on. And Eleanor, don't forget that you have homework to do, you know. Postpone the quilt if you must; you're one of the last people I want to see in detention because of homework negligence. I'll give you another half-hour with Theodore here, then I'll drive you home afterward."

While saddened at what seemed like a brief time to stay with her significant other, she still acquiesced to the man's instruction. "Okay." She watched the man exit to give her some privacy, but no sooner than she did, she nearly lost her temper. "Only a half-hour?" She hissed.

"Well, I wouldn't want you to live in the hospital like me," Theodore mumbled. "Besides, just keep breathing, right?"

"You stole my line!" She exclaimed playfully, before losing a bit of her exuberance. "Hmm… I wonder. How long has Alvin been like this? Acting like a big brother for us too? Me and my sisters, I mean. It makes sense for him to be sticking up for you, but I wouldn't dream that Alvin might have been giving some of those snooty girls in my class a hard time. They used to bug me about being a chipette along with my sisters, but they soon stopped. Alvin must've done something. I mean, why else would they just start leaving me alone? Why would he act as if he was our big brother? And why wouldn't he say anything about it?"

"I don't know," Theodore admitted. "I think Alvin has been keeping lots of secrets from everyone. I thought I knew my brother, but we just don't. Do we, Eleanor? Did you know?"

"You just heard me. I didn't have a clue." She mused a bit, before coming to a decision. "You know, since he's like that, I wouldn't mind if he called me his little sister."

"I wouldn't have a problem with him if he did. But I thought you hated being called 'little sister'."

"From my sisters… I hate it. It makes me feel weak, even though nothing is really wrong with that since it's the truth. But with Alvin, it'll be different."

Theodore was completely on board with the idea. "I kinda feel the same way. I'd want Alvin to call me 'little brother' all the time."

"I thought you hated being called 'little brother' because he called you that way just to get on your nerves most of the time. Besides, he can't talk anymore-" She stopped herself hastily, but luckily, Theodore ignored her faux pas.

"It's fine. Even if it's sign language or writing or whatever, it'll be my way of remembering my brother's voice." Theodore remarked. While his words were brave, his voice noticeably cracked. In a bid to cheer him up, Eleanor hugged him fiercely, before announcing that they could start to try to learn sign language while Alvin is was still in his coma.

"Don't worry about it!" She added with a smile. "Anyway, I'll feed you your breakfast! I brought some Swedish pancakes from home! I made them just before I came over, so they should still be warm."

"Swedish pancakes?" Theodore could feel his mouth already salivating at the prospect; Eleanor's cooking skills were nearly legendary. For her to make Swedish pancakes were nothing to sneeze at; hell, if someone even thought of sneezing at those pancakes, his pancakes, he'd do something violent-

Well, that was weird. He was already thinking with his stomach instead of with his brain. He lost his train of thought so easily. He guessed it was just because he was hungry. "Great!"

 **…**

 **…**

 **…**

After a while, Theodore, on mental socialism instinct, had begun to talk to himself in an effort to fill the silence of the room, now absent of Eleanor who had departed a few hours ago. "I wish my hands would hurry up and heal fast! And Alvin too! I hope Alvin wakes up soon so I can have someone to talk with even though he can't answer me back. But if he woke up at least, it would give me someone to talk to." He looked over to Alvin, almost half-expecting him to suddenly rise up from his coma, only to be disappointed. "Aw… I might as well be alone in here…" A new thought came to him as he considered this. It had been selfish of him to want Alvin to wake up simply because of his wishes for company, but his character soon changed adversely, for the better. "I'll have to become Alvin's voice for now on. I will have to try and figure out what he wants me to say whenever he tries to talk to me with sign-language and stuff, even when Alvin is trying to talk to other people. But um… will he be mad at me for talking for him in front of other people? Wait a minute…" A horrible thought came to him, one that seemed to have been forgotten a lifetime ago. "Wait… will Alvin forgive me because I did not call Simon? Won't he be mad at me?" His eyes snapped to stare at Alvin's form, now more-or-less afraid of Alvin happening to wake up at that moment. "Oh, Alvin! I'm so sorry! I didn't call Simon for you when you asked..."

"…" No response. No surprise.

"This is going to be long and boring during the days until Eleanor comes and see me in the nights during the week. At least she can come here on Saturday and Sunday in the day, right? And… Am I going crazy…! I hope people don't think I'm crazy just because I'm talking to myself." Instantly, Theodore's head fell as he groaned loudly. "Oh no, now I'm even starting to answer my own questions! I must be going crazy! Like the time I realized that I liked the dog biscuits that Alvin pranked me into eating! Although…" Theodore's eyebrows shifted in slight confusion. "Although they were a little on the crunchy side…"

It was at this very moment that Theodore had a revelation, one that changed his stance on Alvin, principally on where his brother's pranks were concerned. It was a strange development; previously, he had believed that Alvin was only a selfish prankster, only concerned about himself. Now, in hindsight, Alvin's practical jokes now seemed… lighthearted and humorous. Simon and Jeanette's glasses being switched, for example. Or the time when he taped the pipe at the sink to make the water spray haphazardly. Or the time when when he-…

Indeed. His pranks were numerous while remaining somewhat harmless. Although it affected who it may, Alvin always apologized, more often on his own free will, or after a brief colloquy with Brittany when his pride was too hard for him to swallow. While Theodore could admit to himself that he usually found it in himself to accept Alvin's apologies whenever he got out of hand, Simon was usually more severe, cautioning, scolding even, whenever Alvin's practical jokes were far too 'humorless for his taste'. Now that he thought about it, Simon acted like a sort of moral compass for the families. While he wasn't mean, he could be a little uptight and behaved as if he was always right.

Theodore glanced at the clock hereafter, before doing a comical double-take when he saw the time. "Wha-… Nine pm?! How long have I been mumbling to myself…?!"

This wasn't his main focus, though. Nine 'o' clock was the time when a nurse would come to change his diaper, along with his brother. Hardly was this realized when said nurse entered the room, carrying a change of diapers with her.

The only thing worse than wearing diapers, Theodore fumed, was having to do his business in the **diaper**. This was the only reason why he allowed her to do her job in peace.

That didn't mean that he abhorred it any less, though.

Post the nurse's departure, Theodore let himself lean back onto his pillows with a deep sigh."This is even worse than when we were younger and we had to stick to diapers because we weren't potty-trained yet." Reminiscing a bit, he recalled the incident when Simon was criticizing Alvin for being too slow to adapt to the training. It was with a small amount of shame (and self-respect) that Theodore himself had come to Alvin's defense, although his voice was even tinier than it was now: "Back off, Simon...! It would serve you right if you wound up wearing diapers again all the time." To which, Simon only scoffed.

"Me? Wearing diapers again? That'll never happen."

Times changed so quickly in an instant. Now, they were ALL in diapers. **Again**.

But that didn't mean that Theodore accepted it.

"Ugh! I hate being diapered and treated like a baby." The word 'hate' was now an official word in his vocabulary; he despised diapers enough for the cursed things to deserve it.

 **=l=l=**

"Dave, your boys need you!" Talbot exclaimed in his low tone, letting the paternal Seville know that he was upset. "I'm not good enough to even be your substitute in a time like this! At the very least, you should visit for Theodore's sake! Perhaps your arrival may act as a catalyst that'll wake up both Alvin and Simon-"

"I get it, Mr. Talbot." Dave's voice sounded tired and melancholy on the other side of the line. "But I can't make it anytime soon, not without getting fired, at least. Besides, I wanted to keep the boys in school so much that I had to take this job in the first place, and there's hardly any money left from the small concerts they did every now and again."

"Well, take some time off!" Lawrence argued, stalwart in his point. "They're your sons! Surely, being their father is far more important than any other job in the world!"

"I appreciate the sentimentality, but this job and the medical insurance money that comes with it is what's paying for them to stay in the hospital in the first place. And I've already used up all of my paid-leave days earlier this year, back when I took the boys on holiday. I guess in retrospection, it wasn't the best move to make."

"Your sons come first, no matter what. But have you explained the situation to your boss? I'm sure he should understand, correct? You can't be on the other side of the world in a time like this." Talbot began to pace the ground in his anxiety, a telltale sign that he was upset. "Theodore is driving himself crazy with guilt, and Alvin's vocal cords are virtually ruined, Simon's condition is critical, not to mention that the latter two of the three brothers are still in comas!"

"I know already. Theodore's not the only one making himself mad with guilt. I should've been there with my sons, and for the chipettes as well. But you're going have to fill in for me until I can come home. I'm still the emissary for the company I'm working for. The last thing I want is for the boys to come home only to find that the house's been repossessed or find it being rented out or something. I have to keep working, or rob a bank-"

"That's dark humor, and completely unnecessary.," Talbot's reprimanded severely. "Talk to your boss again. Do something! Anything!" Dave 's yawn echoed through the speaker and into Talbot's ear. "Did I call at a bad time?"

"You called at an okay time. It's eight am over here. I just didn't sleep well. Wait a minute… wait a minute… doesn't that mean that's midnight where you are right now?" Dave realized with amazement.

"It's fine. You work for that record company, huh? Representing new talent? Where's the address for the person who works in Human Resources? I want to write an angry letter about this farce-"

"That won't do anything," Dave disputed. "Even if the woman in the HR department follows through, the CEO wouldn't let me. You probably saw him on television before. Kenny Hewitt. The-"

"That arrogant bastard who claims to own modern-day radio? Lives on Ray Boulevard?" Talbot could hardly believe his ears. "I know of him. Dave, I'll talk to you later." Before Dave could answer, Lawrence had already slammed his phone back into its receiver with a substantial amount of infuriation already building. "That man…?" He glanced back at the phone he had smashed down to see that he had nearly broken both it, and the telephone cradle itself into pieces, with spider-web cracks all over.

"Hmm? The curse? No… it can't be…"

He hadn't really been trying to break the phone, he had just reacted out of some resentment. In fact, Talbot had trained his mind to remain calm under pressure and in a crisis; anger was one of the usual ways that triggered his transformation into a wolfman. And for him to break an old-fashioned sturdy phone like his was already no small feat, neither was losing his anger. Glancing outside, he took note that there wasn't a full moon. So even if he still had the curse, he shouldn't be able to transform given the lack of the complete lunar cycle.

Right?

But this raised a frightening new possibility. What if the curse was only suppressed? Or worse, only temporarily? It could have been lurking below the surface, yearning for a way to return? He clenched his hands tightly as if testing himself, but winced in pain when he realized that he had drawn blood.

His fingernails were claws.

In morbid curiosity, he clenched his hand again, afraid that he'd only cut himself again. To his mild surprise, the claws had retracted and returned to being ordinary fingernails. Furthermore, the pain of his self-inflicted cuts was already healing.

'Hmm… could it be? Could it actually be **control** that I was given, rather than a cure? If it was now under **my** control, I was simply being able to stop myself from turning into a monster all this time, rather than being unable to transform at all?" He stroked his chin with his un-bloodied hand as his mind ran away with him at top speed. 'And if I have the control… does that mean that I'm able to alter myself into a wolfman whenever I please?'

There was no time to experiment. If there was any a time that his curse could be a blessing, this would be it.

With that thought in mind, he opened the front door as carefully as possible to avoid waking any of the chipettes upstairs, before quietly closing the door behind him.

Then he allowed his inner feral nature take over.

 **=l=l=**

A pudgy hand reached into the popcorn bowl, shoveling up popcorn to the owner's mouth. A second later, alleged owner nearly choked on the popcorn in a fit of chuckles.

"Oh my Gawd!" Kenny guffawed as he watched the black-and-white flick being played on his home theatre screen, the large display easily revealing the old-fashioned wires and cheap special effects. "This monster movie is so cheesy!" More screams pelted out from the people being killed by a shadowy wolf fiend as the monster easily separated its victims and eviscerated them all. "What're you all, dunces?! You don't shower alone, you don't walk alone, you don't walk at the back. Man, it's like they trying to get killed! Dumb teenagers!" Before he could rile more about the film, his heavy oaken front doors exploded inwards with a resounding crash, splinters and shards of wood flying every which way.

If that wasn't enough to frighten Hewitt enough to give him a panic attack, the sight of a seven-foot-tall leviathan charging forward with bloodshot eyes squinting in rage was far more than enough, it's open maw gleaming with huge, slavering fangs.

 **!RAAAAAWWWWWRRRR!**

 **…**

Close by, a neighbor sighed in frustration as he tuned up the television to its max volume but found that it wasn't enough. "I can't get a break! Doesn't Hewitt realize that other people want to watch TV too? Man! He hasn't got a conscience bone in his body!" The irate man dashed to his window and leaned his head outside. "C'mon, Hewitt! Turn your God-forsaken TV down!"

More monster-like roars were all he heard, complimented by shrieks and screams. "Man, he probably can't even hear me." The man returned to his television, and on a flash of inspiration, plugged in his headset earphones into the television, settling for watching his programs that way. "Hmm… not a bad idea. I should tell that bastard in the morning that he should use earphones too, so the rest of us don't have to put up with his crap."

 **=l=l=**

The lupine form of a supernatural creature leaped from branch to branch, before alighting to the ground below, sprinting through the foliage of the lower brushes. As it did so, the mind of the creature worked even faster. 'Hmph. I never realized… this curse, actually, this one time, was a blessing. Otherwise, I would've never been able to convince that mogul to give Dave some time off. He'll never know that someone is looking out for Dave especially, since I told him to give **all** of his representatives some time off, threatening to eat his soul if he didn't.' The loupgarou actually smirked in amusement, revealing the sharp teeth that resided in its mouth. 'If I scared him any more than I did, I would've given him a heart attack. The smell of him crapping himself nearly gave **me** one though. Typical of big shots. All bark, no bite.' The monster 'grinned' in self-satisfaction. 'Unlike me…'

It took the monster close to ten minutes of constant running and dashing through the undergrowth, intent on getting home as quickly as possible. However, something made it stop in its tracks; hard-wired instincts rumbled inside, making it avert its eyes to the left, regarding the building across the road. Its familiar design reminded it that it had once been here, bar the only thing different was a lone black van parked outside. 'The hospital? Hmm… Theodore's sleeping. Perhaps, I'll visit him tomorrow.' It looked down at its clawed hands, noting how ferocious it looked. "But not now," it growled, before slinking off.

 **…**

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"I thought I heard something. Like a big dog growling. I even saw something move in the bushes too. Across the road over there."

"Well, you want to know what I think?"

"What?"

"Stop gawking at your hallucinations and keep your eyes on the reports. I didn't spend the whole damn evening getting a hold of these medical reports just for you to allow your mind to play dumb tricks on your eyes." The second man knocked off some ash off of his cigar outside the window of the van, before tucking the roll of prime tobacco back between his lips to take a long draw. Exhaling the smoke with no small degree of contentment, he shook his head. "Just keep focused."

The first man nodded, shaking off what he was now believing to be a gaff of poor night vision. "All right." He read through the reports through each of the Seville's in turn, his eyes growing increasingly wider. "They didn't look too good at first, but damn, they're getting better fast. But the one thing that's bothering me how in the hell did those damn chipmunks survive in the first place? That 'Devil's Cocktail' is nasty stuff! No one can survive even breathing it for a short time!"

"Shut your trap, that's a good thing. It's what Hawke wanted to experiment to find out in the first place."

"No one's supposed to live after that chemical explosion. Not even if they're special or not."

"Then why are the chipmunks alive?" **Sunday Night**

* * *

 **Author's Note: Characters are developing, plots are thickening and things are starting to heat up! You have to keep reading to find out what happens next! Read and review your thoughts, please!**

 **-SpyroDragonTime.**

 **Beta's Note: Ditto on what he said. Forgive the lack of detail in some scenes, though; this chapter nearly became a book all by itself. Nonetheless, we hope you enjoyed the chapter, and the story thus far.**

 **-Vos Mos Amplio.**

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

Theodore gave a long exhale as he continued his distracted tally of the specks in the tile plaster ceiling high above him. "That's the last three hundred," he noted. Just before he could begin afresh, however, he heard familiar footsteps approaching the door; low, with small strides. His heart began to beat faster, almost on its own accord, almost counting down the time it would take the person to reach the door in high anticipation. After what felt like a lifetime of impatience, the doorknob turned and the door opened, allowing the person entrance.

Said individual beamed when they saw Theodore on his bed, smiling broadly. "Wow! Someone looks super happy to see me!"

The chipmunk blushed to a nearly insane degree, his own speech impeded by his mild embarrassment. "Ellie, y-you have no idea!" It was then that he noticed that she had on a small backpack on her back. Seeing it, he presumed that she had come to the hospital directly from school. "Coming straight from school, Eleanor?"

"Nope!" He tone was more excited than what should have been expected, but she had just reason. Shrugging off the bag, she then pulled out an item from the main compartment. "Just bringing this from home." His curiosity piqued, Theodore looked on in wonder.

"What is it?"

"A little help." She unfurled what appeared to be a chart, already with thumbtacks in. Without missing a beat, she stuck the chart into far dry-wall facing the beds on which the Seville brothers lied before coming back over next to him. "It's a sign-language chart that Mr. Talbot bought. It has the alphabet and numbers from zero to ten. Can you see it clearly from where you are?"

"Um…" Caught unawares by this sudden and unexpected chain of events, he blurted out his answer. "Uh-huh! Even the little 'Made In China' message at the bottom."

"What?" Eleanor took his answer with a grain of salt. "You can read… what?" The chipette squinted. "I'm having a little trouble _reading_ the chart itself for what's on it, much less… are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm seeing it just fine." Despite his response, the spring green-clad chipette Miller went back over to where she had stuck the chart and read the bottom of the chart. "Dang. Are you sure that you didn't just guess that it was there? I mean, it's like everything made out of plastic, even that plastic sheet over it comes from that country anyway."

"I can really see it," Theodore protested. "Just like those dots on the ceiling. I counted them twice now. They're about one thousand, eight hundred and seventy-one up there." Eleanor only rewarded the ridiculous claim with a raised eyebrow as she averted her eyes to the ceiling. From her perspective, the dots were nearly enough to darken the white plaster to a gray-… they were that small and nigh imperceptible. The spring green-clad chipette turned back to look at 'munk on the bed, who, strangely enough, appeared to be telling the truth. He was usually truthful, and he didn't look like he was currently lying. Pure and honest.

"Well, either I need glasses," Eleanor began, "and I know that I **don't** … or you've got some pretty good eyes, Teddy." Seeing his face darken with embarrassed blush when he heard the cutesy name, she hurried to mend her faux pas. "Oops! Sorry, I didn't mean to call you that. It just slipped out-"

"That's okay, Eleanor!" Theodore lightly waved his bandaged hands back and forth, trying to placate his significant other who was now nearly as red a tomato. "I don't mind it at all."

Eleanor cleared her throat, trying to get her face to cool down. "Okay Anyway…" She went back over him and took out a patchwork quilt out of her backpack, unfurling it. "But this-!" Her tone grew increasingly pleased as she held up the quilt, each of its patches perfectly squared in a pattern for a suitable body length. "I **made** this quilt for Alvin to help you two out."

"It has the alphabet too?" Theodore took note of how much the quilt resembled the chart. Although a bit smaller in coverage, he still realized that the patchwork was rather exact and the letters were detailed, something that Theodore thought was difficult. Then there was the fact about the overall effort it had to have cost the chipette, not to mention she had to find the time to make it in the first place. "You didn't have to since you were bringing the chart-"

"Well, the chart can't keep you warm, if that's what you're saying," she answered with a huff.

"No, no! I love it!" Theodore defended. "I _love_ it!" Unbeknownst to him, Eleanor pondered why he'd make such an adverse comment since he was typically the appreciative type. The answer came to her suddenly, before she grinned mischievously to herself.

"You're not jealous of him having the quilt, are you?"

Theodore stuttered, unable to form proper sentences. "No! I mean… well… jealous? No. I'm _not_ jealous."

The spring green-clad chipette shrugged nonchalantly, having seen right through him. "It's fine, Theodore, I know what you meant. It wasn't hard to make. The hardest part was actually getting Mr. Talbot to buy the right fabric. He's such a… **guy** , you know?" Pardon her for the sexism, but she couldn't stop herself from saying it. "Ehh, a girl would've known, but not a man like him. Just imagine! I told him to buy some red fabric, and he carries back _scarlet_ fabric. And then he had the _nerve_ to ask me about the difference-!"

Theodore didn't have the heart to tell the chipette that she'd completely lost him while making her point. "Okay, I get it." His attention easily started to wander as did his eyes; they came to settle on the quilt that Eleanor had made which rested on the bed next to Alvin. Each square looked to be about two inches by two inches and occupied by a letter of the alphabet in sequential order.

'I can point at the letters with my bandaged-up hands,' the chipmunk realized, as he pointed his arm at the quilt, unintentionally breaking Eleanor from her monologue. 'Alvin can do the same thing when he wakes up. He **can** talk to me, even if it's just by pointing!'

"Um? Are you feeling okay, Theodore?" Eleanor asked. "You're not feverish or something, are you?"

Realizing his awkward pointing, he quickly dropped his hand. "No. By the way, how's Brittany doing? And Jeanette?"

"The usual. Jeanette's reading books to Simon when he's still out cold. Brittany wants to come too, but Mr. Talbot told her that she's not ready to come see you or Alvin yet. It'll probably be too hard on her. You know how she is." Eleanor gestured towards her own heart whilst giving her sweetest smile, "she takes things really personally. She's not soft or anything, but I swear, sometimes I think she really needs to learn to roll with the punches. Brittany just needs a little more time." She approached the 'munk on the bed and hugged him as best as she and he could manage. "By the way, she sends lots of hugs. Thanks for asking about my sisters, Theodore. I guess…" Eleanor's gaze became distant as she finally allowed herself to relax; she'd been denied that ever since her own fretting over her own siblings, particularly about what was going on in their heads. "I guess I would've expected you to be more worried about your own brothers. It's not like it's Jeanette or Brittany are in the hospital."

"It's okay," he grunted as he felt the girl's hug was starting to squeeze the air out of him, "I think that you're giving some of your hugs along with Brittany's, huh?"

Noticing that he was starting to get blue in the face, she eased off. "Sorry!" She returned to where her backpack was before proceeding to take out their homework. "Um… Theodore? Can I ask you a question?"

"Wasn't that a question?"

Eleanor leveled him a stern look-… she was not amused.

Theodore seemingly diminished, having lost face. "Okay, go ahead."

The chipette shook her head in mild apprehension. "How did Alvin really get those scars across on his chest? I can see them peeking out from under his hospital gown-… all three of them. They look really deep, too."

Theodore looked thoughtful, carefully trying to unearth any memories of them but found that he could not. "I don't remember how he got them. I can't even remember where I was at the time. But I do remember when Mr. Talbot said it was from a wild animal, but I think Alvin was trying to protect me from it or something like that. Alvin has to know why he has the scars, but he kept it to himself. He didn't say anything about it, or he hasn't told _me_ , at least."

Eleanor slowly turned to face the red-clad hooded chipmunk who lied comatose on his bed, sighing deeply as she did so."How many secrets does Alvin have…?" She shook her head, having learned nothing. "Let's forget that for now. This school work has to get done first, then we can play a game or something before Mr. Talbot shows up. He told me that he wanted to have a talk with you, Theodore."

"What for?"

"Beats me. But he was staring at some important-looking papers, though."

 **=l=l=**

Mr. Talbot waved goodbye to the Jeanette before closing the door behind him. "Remember that I'll be back soon to drive you girls home."

"I won't forget." To this, the man merely nodded to himself before walking off down the hall, making a beeline to Theodore's room. He realized that he was spending his time more often than not in Theodore's company. He suspected that it was because he was slowly slipping into a fatherly role to the chipmunks, Theodore mostly as of present due to the fact that he was the only one conscious. Dave was due for a return trip as soon as his flight was able. Until then, Talbot realized that he'd be wearing Dave's position as much as he'd wear clothing… a matter of being personal. He shook his head, trying to free his mind of such thoughts whilst opening the door to Theodore's room.

'Don't worry, Lawrence. Dave'll soon be back home to take care of his kids. You made sure of that…' He opened the door to let himself inside; he wasn't surprised to see Eleanor present as well. "Well, well, well. Am I interrupting something?"

"Did you knock first?" Eleanor replied bluntly. Mr. Talbot simply rapped the door he still held open a few times before closing it.

"My apologies. In any case, however, since you've found the time to be amusing yourselves so, is it safe to assume that you've completed your schoolwork?"

"Yeah." Theodore's response was instant. "It took a while since Eleanor had to write the answers for me too." Seeing Talbot's giving a warning stare, he hurried to further explain. "I told her my answers that I wanted her to write for me."

"So it took longer, yes?"

"Um, yeah, it did," Theodore admitted carelessly.

"Is that the **only** reason why?" The man's tone was strange; both the 'munk and the chipette shared a look, unashamedly wondering what this was about, as it was obvious enough that their caretaker wasn't exactly in high spirits.

"What's all this about, Mr. Talbot?" Eleanor's tone was somewhat plain; something about what the man was saying was certainly indicating a bad direction.

The man took a seat next to Theodore's bed, scratching his chin whilst in deep thought. "I was, sad to say, doubting whether or not you boys would be resilient when as it pertains to your academics, since the accident, that is."

"What does that mean?"

"He's saying that he was worrying if you and your brothers could bounce back," Eleanor explained to the confused Seville, "you know, since the accident forced you out of school. If you can catch up with the rest of the class, do your assignments, things like that."

"Well said, Eleanor," Mr. Talbot congratulated, "but not exactly. It's not Theodore and his 'brothers'. It's Theodore and his 'brother'."

"'Singular', as in one of his brothers?" Eleanor asked, slightly baffled. "But they're all here in the hospital."

"I have no uncertainties as to Simon," Mr. Talbot clarified. "Even if he's had a hand in the accident, that doesn't mean that he's any less as smart as he once was due to his mistake. He's still the smartest of the Sevilles, but **not** only because he's something of a genius."

"You're talking as if there's something wrong with Theodore and Alvin." Eleanor didn't consider herself as smart as her middle-sister, but she could surely pick up hints whenever they were heard. "You're saying that something's wrong with them?"

Mr. Talbot very well saw that she was growing upset. "Frankly put, yes. It's detrimental." He shook his head in worry before turning to face Theodore, who looked like he was about to panic. "Nothing that can't be overcome, I assure you." He stroked his chin again, once more trying to gather himself. "I've been speaking with Alvin's teachers periodically since late last year. His grades were dipping more often than spiking; his average was a bit random because of this but it tended to barely reach the required minimum. I took it upon myself to observe his studying habits, his weekly timetables, his interests and so on. After a month of this, I began to suspect that he had a learning disability. It's not as if I'm trying to excuse him for receiving poor grades, it's a passing suspicion that I'm beginning to believe is true. So earlier, I had him tested. Charts, sequences in IQ tests, so on and so forth."

It was at this that the man went silent, prompting Theodore to speak. "What happened?"

Mr. Talbot bit his lower lip. "My suspicions were correct."

"So that's why you're worrying about Alvin!" Eleanor exclaimed. "I wouldn't worry too much about him having learning problems. I bet Simon and Jeanette can tutor him-"

"That's not all," the man interrupted. "I decided to follow through and test the other Sevilles as well. As of consequence, I believe Alvin informed Theodore on what kind of test to expect, and prepared himself for it, the same test around three weeks ago."

"He did."

"…" Mr. Talbot nodded. "I'm sad to say that there is no real way to study for an Intelligence Quotient test. You can increase your mental agility, but it's based on how quickly you can determine the correct answer to what would appear to be bizarre questions. Theodore, you also failed to hit the standard expectancy. I thought it was an isolated incident, so I had you take two IQ tests, and hardly anything changed. Some might even say that the second attempt was even less successful. Although your results were a wee bit higher, you're still in the same boat as Alvin. You have a learning disability as well."

"That's bullcrap!" Eleanor exploded. "You're not calling him retarded-"

"No one here is," the man interjected quietly. "And if I were, then it would mean that I'm retarded as well since my IQ is on par with the boys back when I was younger. Nonetheless, your situation can be improved, or even become beneficial to you, as mine has. In any case, while this shows that Alvin isn't lazy but actually has a learning disability, it goes to show that you chipmunks need to find more time in your schedules for studying and things of the sort, in order to improve. You can't expect to do the same amount of studying as everyone else and expect to score the same-" The man noticed that Theodore had a questioning look on his face. "Yes? Do you have a question for me, Theodore?"

Theodore's head hung with misgiving. "I thought I was just slow at reading and taking a test. Simon always helps me with my homework first before becoming crabby. Then he'd take a break-… that's when Eleanor would come in and finish helping me. After his break, Simon would try helping Alvin with his homework. It'd last about forty-five minutes before he started yelling at Alvin and saying that he is not trying hard enough and just being lazy. Now, after finding out Alvin and me having a learning disability, I feel terrible that Alvin got yelled at by Simon and had to be getting talks from Dave about trying harder. He always used to say that he was trying hard but just had a hard time with school. He was just like me."

Mr. Talbot's jaw nearly fell. Were the boys already getting help? Granted, it was begrudging help from their smarter brother, true, but if they needed help just to be able to score a mediocre grade, then…

The bad news had just gotten worse.

He noticed that the children were losing their measure of childlike-faith after seeing his drop in emotions. Trying to save face, he relatively tried to change the subject."Alvin's best grade is in Phys-Ed, correct?" Receiving a 'yes', he went on to continue. "Alvin is one of the top 5 in Physical Education in the whole school… including all the 6th graders. So far as I'm concerned, there are two types of people: Readers and Doers. Simon, Jeanette fall under 'Readers'. You, Alvin, Eleanor, Brittany fall under 'Doers'. In other words, you, Alvin, Eleanor, Brittany learn better at 'doing' it than 'reading' it. Understand? You can't be the best at everything, but at 'doing', I'm sure that you'll be quite capable. Understand?"

"Yeah! Just like me when I'm Home Economics, right?" Theodore said excitedly. "Right, Mr. Talbot…?" His bright gaze fell, his eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown. "Wait… that doesn't make any sense…"

"What?" The man queried.

"Alvin's grades got better a few weeks ago. Even last week before the accident, I saw him get a 'C+' on one of his tests," Theodore commented. "Doesn't that mean that you're wrong about him?"

"There is no easy way to say this, Theodore, so I'll be blunt. I've been showing Alvin some favoritism." Mr. Talbot shifted uncomfortably in his seat, having clearly been put on the spot. "The fact of the matter is… I've been tutoring Alvin during the detention he serves in my office. The other children serve their detention in the classroom across the hall from my own office."

"Um… so isn't that good news?" Eleanor asked, confused.

"If any of the board members find out, I could lose my title as principal," the man deadpanned.

They got the hint immediately, seeing their babysitter's serious expression. "So it's a secret?"

"Yes, Theodore that is correct," Mr. Taller said in his gruff voice. "And you kids can call me 'Talbot'. Calling me 'Mr.' makes me feel like I'm hundreds of years old." He laughed mentally at this but remained only calm on the outside. "But don't call me like that in school. I don't want the other kids there to think I'm a pushover." After receiving nods, he switched points. "We might not be able to manage a transfer for Alvin to go to a special institution because of his new disability, or at least, not yet. I've been communing with the teachers to get them to allow Alvin to now be a part of your class, Theodore. He's going to need a lot of 'help'…" He pointed at the sign-language quilt that rested next to Alvin on his bed. "Understand?"

Theodore looked down at his heavily-bandaged hands, briefly wondering how he could learn sign-language before he understood. "Oh. I'm gonna talk for Alvin. I get it. Thanks for putting him in my class. But what about schoolwork-"

"Don't fret, I'll see about getting you boys an exceptional tutor, one that has excellent working hours to see that you both improve. That way, Simon needn't bother himself helping you with your academics. Not to mention, I know that both Eleanor and yourself have a free hour during the detention-period. If you come to my office, we could learn Alvin's new language together, whichever way that works out."

"Um, Mr. Talbot." Seeing the man's cautioning glance, Eleanor corrected herself. "I mean… 'Talbot'? We don't know how long they could be here in the hospital. Not to mention, I think Theodore's so bored that he's started to count the plaster freckles in the ceiling just to pass the time."

The man clapped his hands once in resolution. "In the meantime, until you can go back to school, the tutor will start this coming Monday at the hospital during the daytime. That should keep him occupied."

Theodore's eyes rolled up to his forehead in exasperation. "I don't know if I should be happy or disappointed that I'll be learning when I'm not even in school."

"You know, Teddy, you could start counting the ceiling dots again."

"Send the tutor!" Theodore exclaimed. **Monday Night**

* * *

 **Author's Note: To those who reviewed, thanks in bunches! They mean a lot. They're like rocket fuel for our engines and the motivation goes a long way. We'll keep going!**

 **-SpyroDragonTime.**

 **Beta's Note: To the reviewer who's call-sign is 'great story but', I have to concede. You're totally right. I have been acting like a tool. I'm sorry if I offended you, and more importantly, my apologies go to SpyroDragonTime. The main reason why I used a different profile, however, is so that my original profile doesn't look like a glory-hog. I'm no 'literary god'. Far from it, in fact. I'm only a Beta here, and Spyro's the Writer. Almost everyone here on this site can offer ideas and correct some grammar and spelling. But it takes a true writer to get a story out there, and that's him.**

 **By the way, my aforementioned notes that you claimed offended you-… I was just having a little fun with the 'profile-guessing' business, but my ego, more-or-less, got edited. If you care to, go take a look.**

 **-Vos Mos Amplio.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 6**

The small internal bell of the clock outside the room began its light peal, dinging twelve times to signify that it was the twelfth hour. It was mostly suppressed to suit the environment of the hospital, yet it was loud enough for one individual who was passing the time as best as he knew how. Or too loud as it were, as it'd interrupted him.

"Dang it…" Theodore mumbled. "I just _had_ it…!" Fumbling again, he pictured the sign-language chart in his mind to spell his own name. It was a bit awkward and rather _slow_ , but it was decent. "Alright! Now to see if I can remember how to spell Alvin's name!" He exclaimed to himself. Before he could, however, he sensed movement beside him; it was a foreign feeling, and it took him a while to realize why. "… Alvin?" He asked more to himself than aloud.

The movement he'd sensed came from his elder brother who was stirring in his bed.

"Alvin?" Theodore called in quiet expectation, hope blooming steadily in him. At long last, his brother was waking up; how he'd waited for this! "Alvin! You're awake!" Somehow, -despite the sign-language charts and speeches and counsels-, he'd forgotten the prognosis that his brother was rendered a mute. He expected an audible response, but the only one he got was a steady beep, which hastened itself.

Since his arrival in the hospital, Alvin had been hooked up to an ECG ( **E** lectro **C** ardio **G** ram) which monitored his heart rate. The steady beep it made while showing the continual spikes and falls whenever his heart pumped had lulled Theodore to sleep at nighttime and helped to fill the silence of the room with white noise.

Now, they were growing louder as the spikes increased in frequency.

Alvin hardly paid Theodore any attention as aches and pains racked his body; his eyes had scarcely begun to adjust, but the boy panicked as soon as he realized that he was in a foreign. His eyes darted around wildly trying to take in everything at once. Charts, machines, Theodore, _bandages_ , **pain**! His confusion only served to make the strain even more difficult on his mind as he tried to process it all. Trying to adjust himself to sit up in the bed, his hands throbbed dreadfully at the stress. Flinching, he yelled in pain-

He heard nothing from his lips.

Horror grew; the chipmunk tried to speak to Theodore to inquire about what had happened, but could not. Realizing that he couldn't hear his own voice, the boy's fear evolved into outright panic and began to hyperventilate. The machine beside him was now giving a long high-pitched beep, its harrying sound beginning to resemble an urgent warning. Theodore could now hear alarms begin to sound off outside down the hall; before he could think on what they meant, a doctor and his fellow assistant personnel came rushing in through the door, a few half-yelling medical terms that neither of the chipmunks understood.

"He's post-comatose! This is good, isn't it? Alvin! You need to calm down! Calm down!"

Glancing aside, the orderly gawked at the heart-rate monitor, ompletely baffled by the readings. "Christ, look at the ECG, his heartbeat's going off the charts! Is it hooked up to a jackhammer or something?! He must've gone into shock…! But why?"

"Probably because he realized that he's lost his voice," the doctor's composed voice hushed the others and belayed their situational excitement. "Sedate him. Nurse, ready a shot of Ketamine."

"Dosage?" The nurse asked as she prepared the hypodermic needle, stimulating the suction from a jar with the drug, but only withdrew a small amount. "He is somewhere between 11 to 13 inches tall and around six-years-old or so!" To his credit, the doctor didn't even bat an eyelash at the implications of the chipmunk's capacity for potent medications.

The doctor looked at the ECG only once; the man shook his head when he saw what he'd once considered an impossibility; the chipmunk's BPM (Beats Per Minute) was well into the five hundreds, perhaps even more. "He's _not_ average." He quickly took the jar and the needle from the nurse and extracted an even larger amount, expertly purging the excess from the needle to eliminate air bubbles. Alvin's eyes widened as he saw the liquid slightly squirting from the needle. He began to squirm, but the orderly and the nurse held him down securely. Not wasting any time, the doctor found the vein in the chipmunk's arm and punctured it with the needle, pumping the drug into his body. Alvin's mouth contorted into a scream and like before, nothing came. Soon enough, his eyes drooped closed, and the chipmunk was unconscious once more.

Theodore could only watch as the medical team began to query amongst themselves whether or not to put restraints on Alvin, he himself not quite knowing how to react.

 **=I=I=**

"Are you joking? And they restrained him?" Eleanor looked over at the sleeping chipmunk in bed, seeing his wrists restrained to his legs in cloth-cuffs, and his ankles done up together in a similar fashion. "He always was one to be up and about. Guess he's not gonna move now. It's a real shame." Eleanor's head bowed in disappointment. "He finally woke up. He spent so much time… _asleep_ , and they put him back to _sleep_ when he started to have a mini freak-out? This hospital's a **joke**!" Theodore could easily tell that the chipette was growing upset and nervously tried to change the subject. Likewise, he was aggrieved that his brother had to be sedated, despite explanations from the staff that they had (possibly) saved his life, that is, from extreme hypertension.

"Well, I guess he's not in a coma anymore, at least. How're Brittany and Jeanette doing? And what about Simon?" His questions came in a rapid-fire as his impatience rose. "Is he even awake yet? Nobody in this hospital tells me anything!"

"Brittany is taking this kinda hard. Nothing new, but I guess she's doing better than before, 'cause her face seems…" Eleanor searched for the 'right' word, " _lighter_. Yeah. She's happier. The hospital called Mr. Talbot to tell him that Alvin woke up, and he told us. For me, it's like I was watching her face _light_ _ **up**_." The chipette placed extreme emphasis to ensure that she got her point across. "As far as Jeanette is doing, she has stayed quiet and just kept to her books. It's like she doesn't believe it. Maybe she's a little bummed out that it wasn't Simon who woke up. You know how she is, and I can't say I blame her since she's a lot closer to him than Alvin." By now, the chipette was using wild gesticulations, an act that claimed Theodore's gaze.

"… Mmm hmm…"

Eleanor saw her hands pulling his interest and sighed, mumbling something about his attention span. "Um, Theodore, it's my face doing the talking, not my hands. Geez. We've gone over this before-…"

"I like your nail polish," the chipmunk remarked offhandedly as if he were making a comment on the weather. No matter how blunt he could be, he thought that a compliment was in order; green was a favorite color of his and he thought that she was wearing a nice shade of it. His eyesight told no lies; it was evenly done. "The green looks pretty on you."

Eleanor had read tween-magazines; they held articles that any man who easily gave compliments on a woman's 'attempts to spruce herself up' meant that he was a keeper. The thought made her blush a bit at one would think was a docile compliment, but soon got it under control and smiled. "Thanks, Teddy. Some of that goes to Brittany though. She finally talked me into getting them done, and then she went around and did it herself. It took her a while, but she did it great. If a job's worth doing," she muttered the last, "it's worth doing right. And there was some bonding time, too." She mused on how she'd patched things up with her sister. "Yep, we bonded. At first, I was super embarrassed to have them painted, because I was thinking of how they'd get scratched off by the things I do, like cooking, sewing, sports cheerleading and other stuff. But once she held up the color she picked out, I couldn't say no. Heck, I wasn't even thinking that you'd notice them, but you did."

The words 'bonding time' began to revolve around in her mind incessantly. After they were done, she and Brittany were that much closer, right? A stupid thought came to mind, and she crushed it immediately. Following said thought was a vision in her mind's eye, seeing Theodore complimenting any and all females he encountered, soon being lost and snatched up by some girl or woman she wouldn't even know. Theodore wasn't exactly a 'Mr. Right', but if what her magazines had said were true, some bonding time certainly couldn't hurt their relationship, right?

Her blush returned as the stupid thought returned in full force. With an embarrassed smile, she blurted-

"Maybe you want me to paint _your_ nails?" One look at his face brought her back to herself, realizing that she'd said the stupidest, dumbest, **the** _most_ retarded question of her entire life. "Um, never mind. Oops, heh-heh. Stupid question."

"… Actually… okay. I would like them done on my… toenails? I mean, I almost wear socks and shoes all the time anyway. Like…" The words were difficult. "Like the same color you have."

Eleanor was dumbstruck, her jaw left hanging. Suddenly bashful, her eyes browsed everywhere except for Theodore himself. "I was **not** expecting you to answer that question."

Theodore nodded. "That's all right, Ellie." If he had to be honest with himself, he mostly agreed due to the fact that the vibe had gotten uncomfortable between them, not to mention that he'd find it a change of pace. _Any_ change of pace by now would be welcome. Being in bed all the time with his hands heavily bandaged was not his idea of a fun time. Notwithstanding, he STILL had no one to talk to. The hospital, suffice to say, was the cause of squashing that today. Eleanor caught his glance at Alvin and expressed her concerns.

"What about Alvin, won't he see them too?"

"I think I'd be okay with it since his are painted red. Brittany did it at home a few weeks ago before the incident. Something about red being his color, and a joke about 'animal testing'. And losing a bet. That's all I heard."

"Oh, I did not know that until now-"

"Well, it's not something that we talk about, ok!?" His explosive interruption shocked her, making him repentant. Theodore reached out placed his bandaged-up paw on her shoulder. "I'm sorry for yelling at you, Eleanor. It's just that… I'm tired of hurting alone…"

She still retained her shocked expression. He'd finally broken. She'd always sensed that he was pretending that his injuries didn't bother him, instead, only to complain about the minor issue of him being alone in the hospital. While he _was_ feeling like a loner, it wasn't the main problem. Call him selfish but in the midst of his mounting issues for him and his brothers, he wanted someone who could suffer and to help shoulder his burdens, that is, Alvin. It was enough for Eleanor to hang her head. Here she was, fantasizing a closer (perhaps romantic) relationship with him when he wanted someone who could burden pain with. Obviously, that wasn't going to work because she wasn't about to maim herself in a chemical accident. But what could she do?

In silence, she reached across to take up her purse, reaching inside to retrieve a vial of green nail polish. It was apparent that a little of the contents were already used up, but it was still easy enough for her to dip the brush inside lightly. Adjusting herself on the bed, she set about to begin painting his nails, an act that feathered and tickled him. He didn't even have to ignore the feeling; the dip in his mood did that for him.

"You should've seen his face, Ellie. He was trying to shout something, but none of us could hear anything. I don't know how to tell Alvin that he will never talk and sing again…" His eyes turned aside to look at his eldest brother and sighed, feeling a tear well up. Now, he was starting to dread the moment that Alvin would wake up, even more so with silent questions all over his face. How ironic; he'd been so expectantly awaiting his brother's awakening. "I know Alvin's favorite thing to do was singing and he wasn't just good at it, he was great at it. Alvin had the best voice out of the three of us, singing all kinds of notes for all the sons we did as a group."

"Well, what about instruments?" In her opinion, she didn't too approve of Theodore's tangent in the conversation, as it had turned into borderline worship. He could have been looking at the past through nostalgia glasses. In any case, her own slight derailment didn't matter much to him, as he continued down his dialogue path.

"He can play a very mean guitar, and he even helped Dave sometimes by helping out with the lyrics he wrote." Theodore smiled to himself. "Except when Alvin dropped in certain things like how 'awesome' he was."

Eleanor took her time in stroking the brush, a delicate work. "Yep, that sound just like Alvin. But didn't you try to write songs too? I _know_ that you did."

Theodore became sheepish. "I did get to write some songs of my own too, but his were…" He trailed off.

"… Were what? C'mon, spit it out."

"They had better topics." Eleanor raised her eyebrow at this and tried to recall one of the songs Theodore had written. But how to make a compliment about it?

"Um… your songs were… cute, I guess. I mean, someone has to like the song about your Talking Teddy, right. And what about Ice Cream Dream? That was a good one."

"Thanks." The chipmunk looked down, pondering his stance on lead roles. "I dunno how Alvin managed. He could sing in the front on stage anytime someone wanted him to. Simon and I sang lead sometimes, but I guess I'm too shy about it. But Simon probably could. But even I know that Simon was a little jealous-"

"Alvin and Brittany hogged the microphone, Theodore. Even you know that it's true." Theodore had the decency to look a bit shamefaced but soon regained his nerve.

"So you wanted to sing lead for the Chipettes, then?"

"Well… no, I didn't really care for it," Eleanor admitted carelessly.

"I don't know how Alvin does it all the time, and I mean being the lead singer. I know I can't do it, I don't think Simon realizes what it takes to be a lead singer. I know he can be a little boring with his science stuff. It's why I think he was or might have been a little jealous of Alvin or Brittany because they were the lead singers almost all the time. Don't get me wrong Ellie, 'cause I think I'm jealous of Alvin too, but for different reasons than you might think."

In his rambling, he didn't take notice that Eleanor had gone silent. Quietly contemplating, she considered the fact that Theodore was actually placing Alvin on a high social pedestal, even more so than Simon. While it was understandable that he held Alvin in higher regard, could it be because Alvin's voice was shot, or because he disliked Simon from the beginning?

No, it was just Theodore. He didn't dislike anyone. Heck, he probably didn't really know the applications of being neutral, either. But if he was favoring Alvin even more because of the loss of his voice, where did that leave her? Was she in the same boat? What of Simon and Jeanette? Sure, they had their issues, but they were still family. While it was hard not to prefer one over the other, that didn't mean that the lesser should be rejected.

No wonder Jeanette had made a scene about Alvin getting a blanket while Simon was going devoid of one.

"You know," Eleanor said softly, "I've been hearing a rumor in the hospital, something about all three of you being really strong and _lucky_ to even come out of the house alive. All three of you have been affected by the noxious gases, and yet you're all still alive, problems or not. Sure, some of your problems might never be fixed, but you should be thankful. Simon lost his fur for the most part, who knows when that'll grow back if it ever does? Alvin's lost his voice, and you've lost the use of your hands, but you're all _alive_. Deep down, I know that you're glad enough that he's out of his coma, and you won't have such a hard time telling Alvin what's happened. And when Simon wakes up, you'll all be able to move on, won't you?" Theodore was tacit and silent as he considered all these things. They were alive, yes. Move on? Perhaps. The pain was real, and it'd never go away. This was a burden that they'd carry with them for the rest of their lives. It was enough to move him to tears, but he held strong. The tears were dammed up, and he never let a single one fall.

"What… what's going to happen to us? I d-don't know. Alvin can't sing, Simon's still in a coma and I can't use my hands! What about my d-drums…!" Suddenly fearful of what their future might hold, the chipmunk's distress rose. Before he lost himself to panic, he realized that Eleanor was now hugging him, hushing him into calm serenity. It was pleasant and emphatic, careful to not hurt him, yet tight enough to know that she cared deeply, that she didn't want to let him go. It meant more to her than himself; with her head over his shoulder, he never saw her shed a tear, more in resolution than in sentimentality.

"I don't know, Teddy. But I'm still here for you. For better… or for worse." It wasn't lost on her how much it sounded like a marital vow, but she didn't care. "Whenever, forever."

 **=I=I=**

"And then I gave him his dinner," Eleanor finished at last, keeping in mind to avoid telling them about painting his nails. That was superfluous information, and she was sure that Theodore wouldn't want her to tell everyone about that particular fact. "I just came home after that."

"The hospital called me and told me the news, just after lunchtime," Mr. Talbot replied. "We all already knew that Alvin woke up. But to be honest, I didn't foresee the fact that Theodore would want to bear the responsibility of telling Alvin about his condition. In fact, I half-expected to do that myself." He lifted his newspaper once more and began absently reading an article about a nightmarish creature spotted in their area, wondering if it was about him. He got up and ambled off to his study with the paper in hand, leaving the chipettes to talk amongst themselves.

"Maybe I should do it," Brittany offered. "If he's been acting like a big brother to all of us for who knows how long, then I need to step up to the plate and be the **big sister** now, right?"

Eleanor pondered on this. "I know this isn't the time or place, but you really love him… don't you?"

Brittany slightly cringed, apparently having been found out. "Umm…" Her face heated up, nearly becoming as red as a tomato. "Yeah, I've always loved that goofy show-off. That's why it's been so hard for me to come down and see them both in the hospital, especially Alvin," the chipette admitted. "You know, Ellie, I'm glad that you're here with me. I think Jeanette would be too scientific about it but I still love her though."

Not wanting to show favoritism, Eleanor shook her head. "It doesn't mean that she doesn't care, Brittany. She cares as much as the rest of us."

"That's true," Brittany conceded.

Eleanor nodded, before scratching her head in thought. "I've been thinking about this when I was coming home from the hospital, and you just reminded me about it when you said that you're going to be 'the big sister to all of us'. I think I'd want Alvin to start thinking of me like his little sister, instead of just 'Eleanor'. It would mean something more to me than if he just called me Eleanor, especially since Alvin is the only one who can get away with it. It shouldn't be too much of a problem-

"But he can't talk, Ellie!" Brittany sighed. Before she could be affected by the throes of chronic depression, she didn't dwell on this particular subject. "But I think I'd want Alvin to start calling me 'Hot-Stuff" instead of Brittany. I know I have always hated him calling me that nickname because he did it just to get under my skin sometimes. I guess… I even took the teasing for granted… " She eyed Eleanor carefully. "You know what I mean?"

"I understand… I understand that I'm basically looking at a girl version of Alvin right here," the spring green-clad chipette lightly teased. "'Hot-Stuff'? Your _ego_ -"

"Oh, puh-lease!" Brittany rolled her eyes. "As if I haven't heard you talking to yourself about you and Theodore being closer. ~Eleanor and Theodore, sitting in a tree!" Brittany cried out in sing-song. "~K-I-S-S-I-N-G~!"

"What, we don't-!" Eleanor protested. "No, I don't-… aagh!" Seeing Brittany give her a scrutinizing gaze with an eyebrow cocked, she relented. "Okay, fine. I really, really, really, really, _really_ _like_ Theodore. Happy now?"

"Yeah. I'm happy for you."

"Thanks." Eleanor gives her sister a hug, one that rubbed their cheeks together. It was a rather corporeal (chipmunk) way to express affection and gratitude. They soon released each other, their bond left stronger.

"Do you think Talbot will let us skip Friday since it is early release?" Brittany asked, unsure.

Eleanor shrugged. "I don't think he will, but why?"

Brittany smirked, reminiscent of a certain schemer they knew. "Well, I think we should ask Mr. Talbot tonight so that we can be there for Alvin all day on Friday **and** Saturday. You get to be there for Theodore as well. Pretty sweet, huh?"

Eleanor couldn't lie; it sounded tempting. "Asking Talbot to do that for us? He won't let us do that. He'd be lying for us-!" Brittany wouldn't hear anything of it, however, and pulled on her arm.

"Let's just go ask him now, then!" Brittany insisted, tugging on her sister to get her to follow. Finding him soon after, they (Brittany to be specific) made her request.

While vague, he was surprisingly compliant.

"Dave would say 'no'," Talbot said flatly, "And I would be inclined to agree. But these aren't ordinary circumstances. Perhaps… yes… a different case altogether. I will allow it this time. Perhaps the Chipettes could get diarrhea on Friday? Diarrhea can be very _unexpected and could be contagious_ amongst family members." The man's tone was mysterious, but the chipettes got the point. After a word of thanks, they departed for their room. Hardly had they left before Brittany lost herself to her excitement, a mixture of anxiety, relief, and pride.

"See?! He said yes! He's just going to tell anyone who's concerned that we've got diarrhea or something. We keep out self-respect, we get to spend it with the guys, and any day we don't have to go to school is a bonus. It should've been a bet-!"

As her elder sister mentioned the last, a thought came to Eleanor, recalling Theodore's recount of Alvin having his own nails painted. "Um, Brittany, how did Alvin get his toenails painted?"

Brittany grinned. "It was a bet between Alvin and me two weeks ago and I won. Good thing I won, or I would've had to wear a shirt with his face on it..." There was a sudden look of shock prevalent on Brittany's face. "Wait a minute… how did you find out about that?"

Eleanor shrugged. "Theodore told me about it when he asked me to paint his toenails green, the same color as my fingernails. Well, I offered to do it, and he said 'yes'."

Brittany smiled to herself, although it soon grew. "Wow! Theodore must have really liked the nail-polish color to ask you to paint his toenails. See? I told you people would start to notice you more with your nails done. Aaww~! I bet he looked so…" Brittany couldn't contain herself and gushed.

Eleanor blushed hotly as she searched for words, stammering. "He's s-sweet… He j-j-just looks like a big, cute t-teddy bear to m-me."

Brittany shook her head with a silly grin on her face. "You know, I think you like him even _more_ than you say you do."

More than really, _really_ _liking_ him? Love? "Well… I…..A... I guess I do." Brittany could only hug her little sister, almost filled with emphatic pride, accompanied with a tinge of jealousy. It soon passed, and with a care, bade her younger sister goodnight.

On their way back to their bedroom, both chipettes crossed paths with their last sister at the top of the stairs. Post-encounter, it was rather awkward as all three were silent, but it was Eleanor who broke it. She'd well thought-out her predicament from earlier, so she already knew exactly what she wanted to say.

"Say, Jeanette? You've been really quiet and have been reading 'Moby Dick' for the last 3 days non-stop. You've even been kinda spaced out. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Her voice was low.

'It's the most common lie in the world,' Eleanor thought to herself. 'How can I cheer her up?' "Well, alright! We're going to the hospital on Friday for an all-day thing, maybe even staying overnight. How about we all chip in and make a blanket for Simon and give it to him then?"

Jeanette smiled. It started crooked, almost as if she was wary. At first, Eleanor was disappointed in herself for letting things progress to this point, but it absconded the second the smile reached her eyes.

"Sure! I might not know how to even make a quilt, but I'll try. Thanks, Eleanor." **Tuesday night**

* * *

 **Author's Note: Well, it's a slow chapter, but character development galore! Things should pick up in the next chapter to move forward with the plot. We hope you stick around, and leave a review while you're at it! It'd make our day!**

 _-_ _ **SpyroDragonTime.**_

 **Beta's Note: I'm not gonna lie, this chapter was the hardest one to beta. Maybe you could tell. The fact of the matter is, the development was a bit lopsided due to Theodore's disposition. He still hasn't gotten over the feelings that he's failed Alvin by not listening to his request (Chapter 2), and is placing Alvin on a bit of a pedestal because of that. While it's true that his bond is closer to Alvin, that doesn't mean that he** ** _dislikes_** **Simon. And Eleanor! She's got a crush on Theo and… Ugh, it's complicated! I need an aspirin!**

 **…Or a review, that's good too.**

 ** _-Vos Mos Amplio._**

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

* * *

A day later, Alvin woke up in his bed with restraints binding him to his bed. Coupled with the fact that his voice was nonexistent, it was no surprise why he began to have another panic attack. Theodore's ears only had a reception to blare of the ECG beginning to sound off once and intently hesitated a bit before speaking to his brother. Despite the ongoing noise, Alvin still picked up on the voice of his brother and as if in a haven, began to calm down a bit even without his brother cautioning him to.

"I know that you're scared Alvin," Theodore said quietly. "You're in a strange place. You're in pain. You can't talk. It's hard for even me to deal with, and it's probably a lot worse for you. But I want you to try to calm down Alvin, as much as possible. The doctors are outside, and if they think you can't calm down, they'll give you another shot and they won't take the restraints off."

At this, Alvin's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. He tried to yell something and upon realizing that he was still bereft of his voice, looked down sadly. Concurrently, his heart-rate began to fall from its elevation as he did what Theodore asked, mostly for his younger brother rather than himself. After his heart rate fell into a normal range, they lied there in their own beds until the doctors soon came to remove Alvin's restraints. Before they could leave, however, Theodore requested that they pushed both of their beds together to increase their proximity to one another. It took a bit of arguing, but it finally claimed; hardly had the doctors done the deed before Theodore explained to Alvin about the nature of his quilt and his need of it for communication.

"Okay." Theodore tried to hug his brother as best as he could manage, and after a moment, Alvin withdrew out of the embrace to point to his diapers which he'd only just noticed. He'd had an unfortunate history with them, and he despised the damned things. It was with a sigh that Theodore realized that Alvin, before all else, had to be brought up to speed about his situation and the conditions. Of course, he hardly knew how to begin, seeing as some things were more important to know than others without having to pay attention to the order of events.

"All right. It started back when we pulled Simon out of the house… no. That's not where it started," Theodore mused, "it was when you went into the basement to save him. No, no. It started when Simon's experiment blew up."

Alvin gave his brother a look. His eyes didn't stare, didn't glare, didn't accuse or reflect any sort of emotion. Yet, upon seeing it, Theodore felt as if he were about to break down.

"No, no, no!" Theodore cried aloud, already having to choke back a sob. "It started when I didn't stop Simon like you asked!" The emotional well that was himself began to pool past its limits, but before he could become a pitiful crying mess, Alvin laid a bandaged arm around his brother's shoulder, pulling him closer into a hug. It was a simple act, and it needed no over-thinking.

Alvin was telling him, silently, that it was all right.

 **…**

Theodore lost his perception of time as he sat in his bed alongside Alvin. He could have been sitting there for seconds, or hours, or minutes. He was still being tossed in the throes of his own emotions and would have continued to be so had it not been for Alvin starting to commit his own actions.

Theodore didn't notice it at first; Alvin was clumsily pointing at letters in his quilt that lay in his lap. Soon, his pointing became more efficient, despite the setback of having his arms bandages. His hands glided from letter to letter, snapping between the vowels and consonants as if it was something he easily practiced. He even took it upon himself to indicate that he was starting a new word each time he pointed at a letter with two hands, making it easier for his younger brother to understand him.

"Look, Theodore, you need to forgive yourself, it was an accident that none of us saw coming. I don't want to lose any of my only brothers who mean the world to me, the accident has made me realize just how much I could have lost and has made me so grateful to find what I never realized. I have family who I love dearly. I don't care about the accident, or whose fault it is. I'm only glad that before everything else, my brothers are safe. I'm glad that you're safe, Theodore."

With that 'said', Alvin hugged his brother all the tighter, and his brothers returned even tighter, so tight that their cheeks rubbed in sibling affection. "Thanks, big brother. I needed that."

"It's all right, little brother. Everything's going to be all right."

"Yeah. We're fine. But Simon's lost his fur though. They said he looks like a naked pink rat."

There was the sound of a snort from Alvin, the kind heard from people who were struggling not to laugh. Theodore looked up in surprise. He'd been told that Alvin was rendered a mute and did not expect any laughter, although it wouldn't require intact vocal cords now that he thought of it.

"I'm sorry," Alvin 'said', "but I just imagined what he looked like, and it's kinda funny. It's rude, but I keep thinking about what he looks like when he's pink and furless."

Theodore would be hypocritical if he didn't admit that he hadn't thought the same thing. But before he could laugh a little at Simon's expense, Alvin's attention diverted to Theodore's feet when he noticed colors of green on the nails.

"Are your nails painted? Did Eleanor do that?"

Theodore clamped his mouth shut at his brother's question, but once he started to laugh at himself along with Alvin, it wasn't so bad. In fact, once Theodore reminded Alvin that _his_ nails were painted by Brittany before, Alvin continued to laugh.

It was good. It was really good to laugh instead of needless crying for a change. Perhaps they'd all taken a step in a good direction.

Although there was still the dire question… how would he be able to tell Alvin that he'd never be able to speak again?

 **…**

"So we're going to be here for a month or a little bit more you say?"

"Yes, Alvin. I don't think it'll be so bad since we can 'talk' to one another. I felt like I was going to go loopy when I was here by myself. I even counted the dots on the ceiling. More than one time, too. It's one thousand, eight hundred and seventy-one."

"You're not the only loopy one. When you took a nap, I counted them for myself. I got the same amount of dots too." Alvin gave a long exhale before he gestured to the quilt itself and the chart across from them. "It was Eleanor who created these, wasn't she? She's always been good at arts and crafts."

"Yeah, it was her. She really is good at what she does." Theodore took a pause before he continued. "We've been talking. We both think that you've been keeping secrets, like the long scars you have on your chest… all three of them. How did you get those scars?"

Alvin's smile nearly evaporated as he shook his head. Immediately, Theodore took the signal that his brother did not want to tell him such a secret; obviously, he wanted to keep it to himself, or at least for a while longer.

"Forget it. You can tell me when you're ready."

"Thanks. I'll tell you soon. Monday even. It's just-"

Theodore placed his bandaged arm on Alvin's, forcing it down. "You don't have to explain. I don't want to pressure you into doing something you're not comfortable with."

"Comfortable? I'd be more comfortable if this stupid, STUPID hospital wasn't TRYING to make me comfortable. Can't we even go for a walk? I won't make any trouble or try not to. I might go looking for Simon, though. I want to see what he looks like."

"Well, um I guess so."

"What are they going to do? Lock us in here if we get into trouble or something?" At this, Theodore couldn't help but laugh at Alvin's unintentional joke.

"I hope not." Alvin just smiles along with his brother, although it soon fell.

"If I had never played so many pranks, we would never have ended up here. Maybe Simon would've taken me more seriously, and you would have believed me when I asked you to stop him."

Theodore shrugged uncomfortably. "Probably not. Were you really going to buy me that 'Talking Teddy 4' for me?"

Alvin hesitated before he began to point at the words once more. "Yes, I was. I have been saving my allowance money so I could buy me a three-wheel dirt bicycle since I can't ride a normal bike."

"Really? But how long did it take you to get that much money."

Alvin shook his head. "It wasn't hard, but to took me a year and a half to save the money, plus doing extras around the neighborhood."

"I always did wonder why you always borrowed my tricycle. But you were going to give up the money that you had saved to buy that 'Talking Teddy 4' for me?"

Alvin smiled. "I didn't intend to do it at first but it was the only thing I could think of at the time to say. I still would've done it, though. But it still wouldn't have come to that if I didn't play so many pranks." Hardly had Alvin 'said' this did Theodore notice that his brother became extremely despondent as if he were angry with himself.

Instead of trying to insist that Alvin truly wasn't at fault, the green Seville took a roundabout route. "You know when you tricked me into eating Lilly's dog biscuits? At the time, I thought they were cookies when I was eating them but I was just embarrassed that I found out what they were. I do admit it, though, they were pretty good. A little on the _crunchy_ side."

Alvin rolled his eyes "Would it make you feel better if I ate some of them in front of you?"

"You don't need to do that," Theodore answered sharply. "But you need to take it easy on the pranks. Do you remember the story that Dave read to use when we were younger, 'The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf''? This was just like that, Alvin!"

"I'm sorry that I have played so many tricks on everyone. Sometimes I just can't help myself when I do them. I don't mean to get in trouble, but trouble just finds me anyways."

Theodore folded his hands in slight annoyance. "Well, you got that right… even though some of your pranks aren't that bad. You just do them so much that we can't take you seriously sometimes. Just…" Theodore reached across and gave him a brotherly hug. "Take it easy, or we'll have to prank _you_ instead!" Alvin laughed silently at this before he agreed.

"You can try, little brother. You can try."

They continued on like this, longer and longer, garnering and learning more about one another as they conversed. For each scrap of info learned by one, the other learned something else in return. In doing so, both began to think (without even realizing that the other) were wondering how they were going get on with Simon in the same fashion.

In all these things, however, Theodore couldn't help but think that he was exceptionally happy to be having some time to bond with Alvin, although it came about because of an accident. Furthermore, he thought it strange that they were talking so much… when ironically, Alvin couldn't 'speak' at all. Perhaps things would continue to improve along this vein when the other showed up. Looking up at the clock, he realized that it would soon be four-thirty pm. "Hmm… Eleanor should get here soon. I wonder what kind of dinner she'll bring? I can't stand the hospital food."

Alvin took a moment to stare at the drips he'd been on whilst he was in his coma. "About that, I was wondering how Mr. Talbot got the hospital to take us in. I mean Dave always had to argue with any doctor just to look at us. Then they would treat us like rodents instead of like kids. I hate being called rodents or pets or talking demons as well as the other one hundred names that we were called."

"I have no idea. Maybe he paid them extra money. But you know how some people get when they see us. They hear our songs, but it's like they always think that there are actors with high-pitched voices singing, instead of actual chipmunks! The second part, I know what you mean. People act like they never saw a talking chipmunk before. Then they would think we are talking robots or have a small speaker on us somewhere."

"We're talking chipmunks! I know that the talking thing is a little weird to some but when we are in the park playing, people get us confused with the other chipmunk and say dumb things. They'd say 'why would some strange person put clothes on wild chipmunks' or call us 'talking demons' if they really freak out after they hear us talk."

Theodore shook his head. "This is why I don't like some people." Alvin was surprised to hear this. Theodore either _liked_ something or remained neutral to it. For him to say that he disliked something, he meant it. "I remember one time when we were at the vet's getting our pet cat 'Cookie Chomper the Third', looked at. But the veterinarian wanted to take a look us as well."

"Just like the time the vet said that our pet dog Lilly was in perfect health, but the other six talking pets, they needed a diet change. I was hiding in the office when she told Dave. I got so angry! She said 'two are overweight, two need to be fed more often, and the other two need their teeth filed down. She didn't even give Dave a chance to correct her." Before he could continue, a nurse came in to change the two chipmunks' diapers into fresh ones; during the procedure, Alvin briefly wondered if it was actually legal for medical personnel to put unwilling chipmunks in pampers. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."

"I hope we don't have to, Alvin. I hope we don't have to." Theodore said reticently, hoping to console his big brother. "I hate the feeling too. I hate being treated like a baby, but at least the both of us know that we're not suffering by ourselves in this. We have each other, don't we?"

Indeed they did.

 **…**

It was four-thirty on the dot. No Eleanor. No Brittany.

Theodore had to admit that it was strange. His significant other tended to arrive at least a minute or two before this critical time, and never a second after. She was punctual like that. In his mind, he thought that he could hear her approaching or even hear her speaking, but she never showed, leading him to believe that it was only his imagination. In the need to fill the awkwardness of the waiting, he was about to converse with Alvin a little more, only to observe his brother starting to twitch all over in anxiety, namely his ears, tail, and nose.

It reminded him of an uneasy woodland creature, nervous about its territory. Given the fact that they were chipmunks, he found it easy to believe. "Alvin? Are you okay? Take it easy. I don't want you to give the doctors a reason to give you another injection- wait… what?"

Instead of pointing out his letters and words, Alvin could barely contain himself to even remain still. He looked as if he'd forgotten about his new means of communication, and was actually mouthing something. Theodore wasn't well versed enough to read his lips, but whatever word he was trying to say, looked as if it started with a 'B'.

"B- what? 'B'? What's the 'B' word? I don't understand."

'BRITTANY!' Alvin mouthed vehemently, before pointing at the door. 'She's right there! Why won't she come inside, it's been ages since I saw her! Dang!'

This kept on for a few minutes, even to the point that Theodore was trying to 'quieten' him with a brotherly hug, but it accomplished little. However, at last, Eleanor and her eldest sister finally entered the room; the two chipettes had never before seen people so glad to see them in their lives. "Ellie! Brittany! You're here!"

Alvin rolled his eyes, mouthing something about how 'late Theodore was'. His attention soon rested solely on Brittany, and before she could even get a step closer, the chipmunk had heaved himself off of his bed (despite his many intensive burns and pains) to go over and hug her.

"Wow! I guess someone's glad to see me!" Brittany remarked with a wide grin. It soon fell when she felt him sag a little out of her grip, and she had to help him back to his bed. "Easy there, Alvie. I'm happy to see you too, but you need to take it a little easier. I don't want you to hurt yourself anymore." After getting back onto his bed, he pointed at all the letters on his quilt, rapidly spelling out the words 'Thanks', but the two chipettes missed it, due to the nimbleness of his hands and the poor angle. "What was that?"

"He said 'thanks'," Theodore offered, who had seen it all.

"You _saw_ all of that? But his hands were moving so _fast_!" Eleanor boggled.

"I guess I'm used to it," Theodore explained lamely. At least, that's what he thought the reason was.

"Why did you stand outside the hall for the last six minutes? I could hear you talking outside the room. " Alvin 'said'.

"What did he say?" Eleanor asked Brittany. "His hands were too fast."

"Same here." Brittany then turned to Theodore. "You're the expert here, Theodore, so what did he say?"

"He said that he heard the two of you outside the room for six minutes."

Brittany and Eleanor both shared a look of utter confusion. "No, we weren't," they said together uncannily. "We were down the hall."

" _Way_ down the hall," Eleanor added. "We were arguing with some creep. He kept bugging us about how you guys were doing. It took us a while for him to leave us alone." She then gained a look of thoughtfulness on her face as she wondered about the ramifications of Alvin's hearing. She went over to Brittany and whispered something privately in her ears. Once she had, very discretely that is, Eleanor turned to Alvin and asked him if he had heard what she had whispered. She thought that Alvin wouldn't have heard. After all, the whisper was _so low_ that Brittany herself probably didn't hear it.

He couldn't answer, leastwise, not verbally. But it was obvious that he had heard; he started to point out a message, telling them what Eleanor had whispered. "'Where's my cute little teddy bear.' That's what you said." When Theodore repeated what Alvin had 'said', he blushed heavily.

"…Wow…"

"Why don't you just tell Theodore while you're at it, hmm? Of course, he was going to tell whatever Alvin points out!"

"I did hear parts of what she said just not all," Theodore commented. "I guess we both have good hearing, but Alvin's hearing is super! Is that right, Alvin? Doesn't it bug you with all of the noise going on in the hospital if you can hear so well?" His brother nodded.

"Well… I guess we're going to the store," Brittany said with a sigh as she began to tug on her sister's arm. "Right, Eleanor?"

"We are?"

"B-R-B, Alvin, and Theodore! Be right _back._ "

 **…**

After what felt like an eternal twenty minutes, the two chipettes returned to the room, mixed feelings abound. Their re-entry didn't catch the two chipmunks off-guard, although their conversation was hard to follow. "Brittany, I still can't believe you said that to the store clerk!"

The pink chipette merely smirked. "Well… it worked, didn't it?"

"Well… yeah," Eleanor conceded, "but I feel bad for the store clerk now, and he really believed you were there to get it." Meanwhile, Alvin was making gestures that hinted that he was confused to Theodore, who could only shrug in response.

"He wouldn't let buy what we wanted even if we had told him the truth. If I had fifty cents every time that we were called _that_ , we would be rich!" Eleanor looked at her sister very closely, as if befuddled about what she was seeing. "What?"

"Since when did we have two Alvins?"

"Very funny," Brittany said sarcastically. "You should do stand-up."

It'd gone on long enough. "Errm…" Theodore interrupted before they could go on any further. "What are you two talking about? Me and Alvin don't have a clue, and it's kinda confusing," His brother nodded in agreement, wondering what their answer would be.

Before we start…" Eleanor lifted her arm to show them the small shopping bag she carried, out of which she retrieved a pair of ear-muffs. "This ought to help you with problems you've been having."

"…" Alvin nodded his head before he began to point at the letters to continue what he had to say.

Theodore began to read aloud for him, so as to help his brother.

"He says 'Thanks'. He's also saying that he's glad that they're red."

"Brittany wanted to get 'em in pink." Eleanor accused.

"I didn't want them in pink! I wanted to get them in _hot pink_. There's a difference! But then Eleanor said that we should just get red ear-muffs, so here we are." They all laughed at this, although the red Seville's own was inaudible. "Now, about the store…" Brittany continued, now settling into storyteller mode. "When we got there, there was a sign on the door that said 'No Pets'. We know that we weren't pets at all…We're twelve inches tall, we're chipmunks on the outside and inside, but we're NOT pets. You know what I mean.… I guess we're… what's the word?"

"Special?" Theodore suggested.

"I guess you could say that," Eleanor accepted before she continued where Brittany had left off. "So we went inside anyway and started to look for ear-muffs. We realized that they had a LOT of ear-muffs… the problem was that they were on the _top shelf_. At first, we tried to be proper and decided to look for a ladder, but we couldn't find one. After a while, we decided to just climb it. We're good at climbing, so we thought it was alright. We were even careful not to make a mess."

"But then, this dumb store clerk came and grabbed us. He's like 'how did these stupid squirrels get in here?'" Brittany regaled in an exaggerated male voice. "'And why the hell are they dressed up?'"

"And then Brittany said, 'watch it buster!'" Eleanor said, nearly out of the blue as all of the attention diverted to her suddenly. "She said 'we're not squirrels, we're chipmunks!' When the store clerk started to look us over as if he was searching for a speaker like we're some sort of animatronic toy, Brittany started to get really angry… you know how she gets. She started to yell at him, but before she could tell him that we're the chipettes, he just called us 'talking demons'."

"And then what happened?" Theodore asked, now curious as he was excited. He could bet that Brittany had done something out of ire.

Brittany, out of a bit of self-pride, decided to re-tell her portion of the dialogue. "That's right! That's right we are talking demons and we work for the'Great Underlord' downstairs. We've come for your soul! Now hand it over, the boss wants it **now**."

"The guy dropped us like we were hot." Eleanor rolled her eyes. "The clerk pissed his pants and started to run away, but he didn't look where he was going. He ran into an advertising pole and knocked himself out cold. We then climbed the shelves again, found a _red_ ear-muff that would fit Alvin and left a note with money to pay for the ear muffs." At the end of this, Theodore and Alvin were laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes; the moment swept up the two chipettes as well, drawing them to laugh as well.

"That would be something Alvin would do," Theodore admitted. With a nod, Alvin agreed, before his face became crestfallen. He then began to point at the quilt's letters again, albeit more slowly. Brittany could keep up with what he 'said', and couldn't stop herself from becoming emotional. She felt herself about to break and wondered that if she could feel so horrible, then how was it for Alvin himself.

She went to his side on the bed and hugged him, their cheeks rubbing in closeness. She even went as far as to play with his hair in a bid to cheer him up, as it'd always done in the past.

"I wish you could at least laugh too, Alvin," Brittany whispered lovingly in his ear. "But it will be okay. I promise." After a few moments of this, she asked the chipmunk if he was hungry and as if in response to her question, his stomach growled like an animal.

Brittany giggled at this. "I see that your appetite has not changed." She started to feed him the food they brought from home and true to this, he kept putting the food away as if he'd not eaten in days. This was true, due to the fact that he'd been on drips the whole time, but he was hungry to the point of being ravenous. Even Theodore observed that the red Seville was eating even more than himself, and made a small joke of it. Something about 'bottomless pit'.

After this, there was a bit more dialogue, accompanied by a board game or two. When it was all over, (unfortunately, in everyone's opinion, particularly in Alvin's own), the two chipettes told the boys that they had to go. As they were leaving, however, the girls told them that Talbot had been held up in a school meeting and would be by to visit them tomorrow.

The two boys were overall dejected, but Alvin had far more to process than Theodore. Upon his awakening, he'd already found that everything had been changed so much, and he couldn't tell what kind of fate would be in store for him. Of course, he felt somewhat happier; he'd been somewhat estranged from Brittany and her sisters, and now they wanted him to call them names with more affection.

'She wants me to call her 'Little Sister',' he mouthed inaudibly as he thought of Eleanor, 'and Brittany wants me to call her 'Hot Stuff'. I guess I can dig it. But I wonder what's going on with Simon? And Jeanette? How are they dealing with all this?'

"So, um… Alvin?" Theodore said reticently, knowing that Alvin was been locked in thought. "I know that this isn't the best time to ask or say this right now, but when the girls were coming, I noticed that you were twitching. Your ears, tail…" Theodore then 'booped' his brother on the nose as well. "Even your nose, too."

Alvin nodded sheepishly, trying in vain to hide his face behind his bandaged hands.

"There is no need to be embarrassed about something like that Alvin. I think it is kind of cute that they twitch a little." This only served to make Alvin turn even redder in the face than before. "Why are you so embarrassed about that Alvin?"

This was when it hit him.

Theodore smiled widely. "You like her don't you? I mean you like Brittney more than just _like_ her." At this point Alvin nearly had tears in his eyes; he had never been so embarrassed about showing emotions in front of his little brother. Then Alvin just nodded his head 'yes' in response to what Theodore had said. He'd always been big, macho, fearless, tough and a bit of a show-off. And yet, here he was… stricken with emotions. It was then Theodore grasped something about his big brother that nobody else knew about. Theodore had found out that his big brother, his _big brother_ , hated showing emotions in front of his family.

"She's always wearing that bow in her bushy-tail, and she's always grooming herself to look the best she can, even her hair that she swings around when she knows I'm paying attention to her. And her body-shape…" He thought that he might've been stricken by puppy love at his young age, but he shook his head. "She's really beautiful and all, and she's fantastic. But she's even more than that. Brittany's really good to me, even when I'm pranking people. Sometimes, she has that twinkle in her eyes when she wants to help me out with a prank or two. I guess I ACTUALLY love her."

Theodore blushed heavily as he paused to think about the standpoint he had with his significant other. "Me and Eleanor… well, we _are_ very good friends… and I think she is kind of cute and everything," he admitted at last. Alvin reached across to put his bandaged hand on his brother's shoulder to lend brotherly strength before 'talking' with his free one.

"'Kind of cute', just 'kind of cute'? I think you like her **more** than you say you do, because I could hear your heartbeat beating faster when you saw her and there's the fact that you to fidgeted a little with your hands whenever you talked to her. Right now you're even turning very red in the face as I talk to you, little brother."

Having been found out by his big brother on how he really feels about his best friend, Theodore began to open up more to Alvin how he felt about her. "All right, fine!" Theodore exclaimed mostly out of exasperation, already beginning to rattle off things that he liked about Eleanor as if he were reading from a list. "I just love the way that her blond hair is in pigtails with bows and ribbons in them. She also has a ribbon tied to her tail too, and it's always matching the prettiest green eyes I've ever seen. She's friendly, kind, and sweet, and she's never done anything bad to me. She's kinda tomboyish too, which I **like**. I like that she's into sports. I also like the way she dresses…" He kept on like this for a while longer, leading Alvin to believe that Theodore liked EVERYTHING about the chipette. "And **yes** , I really, really, really, really, love Eleanor a lot. Happy now?"

There was only one response that Alvin could say as he stared at this brother who seemed to talked about Eleanor so much that he'd run out of breath. "I think the two of you would make a great couple."

Theodore panted a little. " _Thanks_. In fact, I'm kinda glad we got that out in the open. So… you heard what Eleanor whispered, huh? What is it like having super hearing?"

Alvin shrugged as he took off his ear-muffs which had drastically reduced the background noise he'd been hearing. "Part of its cool, and part of it is not so cool. The part that is cool is that if I try just to listen to one person at a time. I can hear them talk about stuff. Like the lady at the front of this hospital, she is talking about getting her nails done tomorrow. Downstairs, three doctors are talking about someone getting surgery tomorrow. The janitor down the hall, someone is giving him a bad time about his name about how his name is 'Rob', just because a few things have been going missing. There's also the sound of your heartbeat too, just because you're so close beside me. The part that is not so cool is that it is hard for me to listen to you and not everything else. It sounds like a huge crowd of people just standing outside the door with yelling while they're operating machines. Staying focused is kinda hard. I hope this is not permanent for me. And if it is, I'm just going try to find a way to sleep with better and stronger earmuffs or better earplugs."

"I bet that it's weird for you, but don't worry. You'll get used to it. I know that my hearing isn't as good as yours, and I hope the ear-muffs help. Now how about a walk, even if it's around this room? It will help us get tired enough to want to sleep." It was all he could say, hoping to take Alvin's mind off of things. He could see it all over his brother's face.

Alvin was stuck in a world filled with sound, with absolutely no way of contributing his own.

How would Theodore be able to tell him that it was permanent?

 **Wednesday night**

* * *

 **Author's note:**

 **Everything that is underlined will be in sign language. But right now Alvin has to point to the alphabet letters to talk. He will learn sign language later.**

 **Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue! I hope you enjoyed the shippings, and review if you did!**

 ** _-SpyroDragonTime._**

 **Beta's note:**

 **Exactly what he said. I hope y'all see that the plot is moving forward in the background. Onward!**

 ** _-Vos Mos Amplio._**


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